Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "The Dawn" (1904)
The dawn that greets the resurrection day,
I stand amid the glory of the gray,
And welcome here the vision newly born;
Full long has been the dull night and forlorn
That seemed forever and forever to stay,
And dark has been my groping in the way,
And darker still the mystery of Morn;
But now I fear no terror of the night,
No longer wander hopelessly in sin,
No longer falter when my stars are gone;
For all the world is changed in my sight,
For love to God and mankind reins within
And makes my heart to glory in the dawn.
Published in The Voice of the Negro, May 1904