Explore "To John Brown" by Georgia Douglas Johnson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We lift a song to you across the day / Which bears through travailing the seed you spread / In terror's morning, flung with fingers red / In blood of tyrants, who debarred the way / To Freedom's dawning. Hearken to the lay / Chanted by dusky millions, soft and mellow-keyed, / In minor measure, Martyr of the Freed, / A song of memory across the day.
Truth cannot perish though the earth erase / The royal signals, leaving not a trace, / And time still burgeoneth the fertile seed, / Though he is crucified who wrought the deed: / O Alleghanies, fold him to your breast / Until the judgment! Sentinel his rest!