{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/lift-evry-voice-and-sing",
 "title": "Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "James Weldon Johnson",
 "poet_slug": "james-weldon-johnson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1900,
  "venue": "Sheet music, Joseph W. Stern & Co. (New York, 1900), headed “National Hymn for the Colored People of America”",
  "note": "Written for the Lincoln’s-birthday exercises at the Stanton School, Jacksonville, and first sung there in February 1900; the Library of Congress essay on the song dates the writing to 1899. The earliest located printing is the Stern sheet music, a copy of which the British Library stamped 3 November 1900. Marked uncertain because popular accounts date the musical setting to 1905 and the printing to 1921, and no 1900 imprint has been read here — only a specialist account of one.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.hymnologyarchive.com/lift-every-voice-and-sing",
   "https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/LiftEveryVoiceAndSing.pdf"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-weldon-johnson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_the_National_Association_for_the_Adv/AAs-AQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17884",
   "https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsother00johnrich",
   "https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/johnson/johnson.html",
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00johnso"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-14"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 33,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 69,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Lift ev’ry voice and sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till earth and heaven ring.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let our rejoicing rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High as the list’ning skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let us march on till victory is won.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Stony the road we trod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bitter the chast’ning rod.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet with a steady beat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have not our weary feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out from the gloomy past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till now we stand at last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "God of our weary years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God of our silent tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou who has by Thy might",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Led us into the light.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Keep us forever in the path, we pray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shadowed beneath Thy hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May we forever stand.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "True to our God",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "True to our native land.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}