{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/listen-lord",
 "title": "Listen Lord",
 "poet": "James Weldon Johnson",
 "poet_slug": "james-weldon-johnson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse",
 "book_slug": "gods-trombones",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1927,
  "venue": "God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00johnso"
  ]
 },
 "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": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 60,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O Lord, we come this morning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knee-bowed and body-bent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before thy throne of grace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Lord⁠—this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bow our hearts beneath our knees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And our knees in some lonesome valley.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We come this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With no merits of our own.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Lord⁠—open up a window of heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lean out far over the battlements of glory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And listen this morning.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who seem to love their distance well.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lord⁠—ride by this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mount your milk-white horse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ride-a this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in your ride, ride by old hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ride by the dingy gates of hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now, O Lord, this man of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who breaks the bread of life this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shadow him in the hollow of thy hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And keep him out of the gunshot of the devil.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take him, Lord⁠—this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wash him with hyssop inside and out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And make his words sledge hammers of truth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beating on the iron heart of sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lord God, this morning⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let him look upon the paper walls of time.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lord, turpentine his imagination,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put perpetual motion in his arms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And set his tongue on fire.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now, O Lord⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I’ve done drunk my last cup of sorrow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I’ve been called everything but a child of God⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I’m done travelling up the rough side of the mountain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O⁠—Mary’s Baby⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lower me to my dusty grave in peace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To wait for that great gittin’ up morning⁠—Amen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}