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Amid life's fever and fret,
Till hearts shall relax their tension,
And careworn brows forget.
Let me sing for little children,
Before their footsteps stray,
Sweet anthems of love and duty,
To float o'er life's highway.
I would sing for the poor and aged,
When shadows dim their sight;
Of the bright and restful mansions,
Where there shall be no night.
Our world, so warn and weary,
Needs music, pure and strong,
To hush the jangle and discords
Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.
Music to soothe all its sorrow,
Till war and crime shall cease;
And the hearts of men grown tender
Girdle the world with peace.
Harper closes her book, Iola Leroy, with the following optimistic stanzas:
There is light beyond the darkness.
Joy beyond the present pain;
There is hope in God's great justice
And the Negro's rising brain.
Though the morning seems to linger
O'er the hill-tops far away,
Yet the shadows bear the promise
Of a brighter coming day.
Sources:
Baltimore Literary Heritage Project. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Accessed February 2009.
Foster, Frances Smith, ed. A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader, New York: Feminist Press at CUNY, 1990.
Grohsmeyer, Janeen. Frances Harper. Unitarian Universalist Historical Society. Accessed February 2009.
Reuben, Paul. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911), in Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide. Accessed February 2009.
Wikipedia. Frances Harper. Accessed February 2009.
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