Lift Every Voice And Sing

Lift Every Voice and Sing
Music by John Johnson
Words by James Johnson

Lift every voice and sing ’til earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmony of liberty
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea

Sing a song full of the faith
That the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope
That the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on ’til victory is won

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers died?

We have come over a way
That with tears has been watered
We have come treading our path
Through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, ’til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears
Thou who brought us thus far on the way
Thou who hast by Thy might, lead us into the light
Keep us forever in the path we pray

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God,
Where we met Thee
Lest our heart, drunk with the wine
Of the world we forget Thee
Shadowed beneath Thy hand may we forever stand
True to our God, true to our native land
Amen!