A Brighter Coming Day: The Extraordinary Life of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

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Not for the clashing of sabres,  
For carnage nor for strife;  
But songs to thrill the hearts of men  
With more abundant life.  

Let me make the songs for the weary,  
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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www.merylannbutler.com

Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author, and educator who has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled enlightenment for the past two decades. See her YouTube video, "Visionary Artist Meryl Ann Butler on (more...)

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