J. Francis Lee, "Life" (1907)
Tossed and driven as the haze
Fleeting as the breath of flowers
Or the dews on Autumn maize;
'Tis a hill midst thorns and thistles
That the pilgrim's bound to scale,
And in climbing toward the summit,
Some will win and some must fail.
Life's a brook whose sweetest music
Lulls the fainting soul to sleep,
And its lullaby entrancing
Through the love-lit valleys sweep.
Truly life's amighty ocean,
With its hurricanes and death,
While both weeping maids and mothers
Linger near with faltering breath.
Somewhere life had its beginning,
As the streams that glide along
In the sunshine of the morning,
Singing oft a happy song.
And this life will have its ending
As the sun at vesper goes,
When the veil of night is dropping
Noiseless to its long repose.
Published in The Voice of the Negro, January 1907