Birthday Wishes to a Physician
Birthday greetings
From a friend,
All thy meetings
Peace attend.
Time extended
Be thy store,
Bliss appended
Evermore.
Did the flowers
Born of May,
From their bowers
Choose a day?
Music ringing,
On the air,
Flowers springing
Everywhere.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Southern Pulpit
The Southern pulpit, in our eyes,
Descends to make a compromise
With evil things in heaven's name;
The kind that brings a blush of shame.
The evils to the Negro shown,
His rights that Southern men disown,
We view with sorrow and distress,
Its lack of effort to suppress.
Prevailing thought it cannot cross,
If so, it feels financial loss;
The gold to it is dearer far,
Than all the rights of Negroes are.
It preached that slavery was right,
Upon the Scripture based its fight,
Why should we now expect a change
So radical? Such would be strange.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Emancipation Day
The sixties brought a clash of arms—
The mem'ry of it thrills and charms—
While Negro slaves for freedom prayed,
Till Heaven bowed to give them aid.
The God of nations—God of right—
Kept back success within the fight,
Till Lincoln vowed on bended knee,
To set the Negro bondsmen free.
The first of January, see!
In eighteen hundred sixty three,
The first Emancipation Day,
When mad oppressors lost their sway,
The sun of freedom rose that day,
The night of bondage drove away,
When sainted Lincoln did decree,
That slaves forever should be free.
As years of time have come and gone,
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Thanksgiving
Let us give thanks to God above,
Thanks for expressions of His love,
Seen in the book of nature, grand
Taught by His love on every hand.
Let us be thankful in our hearts,
Thankful for all the truth imparts,
For the religion of our Lord,
All that is taught us in His word.
Let us be thankful for a land,
That will for such religion stand;
One that protects it by the law,
One that before it stands in awe.
Thankful for all things let us be,
Though there be woes and misery;
Lessons they bring us for our good-
Later 'twill all be understood.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Why Is It?
Why is it so, Dear Prince of Peace,
That wrongs to Negroes never cease?
Are they disloyal to thy name,
And thus are punished for the same?
Is this thy training school on earth,
To mould a race of truest worth?
Pray is it thus that lives are pruned
And sanctified, for heaven tuned?
Thou art the refuge of the race,
That all its troubles will efface,
Wilt thou incline the wayward heart,
To keep thy law in ev'ry part?
'Tis needful that offences come,
But woe unto the man by whom!
They come the evil hearts to chain,
And drive them back to thee again.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Misunderstood
The ills of all the human race,
The woes of earth that bring disgrace
Would banish, if we only could,
Escape the fiend, Misunderstood.
When Eve and Adam pure and good,
The law divine misunderstood,
A downward course was then begun,
A race that all the earth must run.
The thought is sad, indeed, though true,
That sinners reap in season due,
The fruits of all they sow, and should,
For down in hell they're understood.
The infidels of giant brain,
Would save themselves a deal of pain,
By claiming truth, if such they could,
But they alas! misunderstood.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Voice of the Negro
All ye nations, pause a moment! listen to the Negro's voice,
Coming up from all vocations where his life has made a choice!
Listen to each rank or station, as you cross the sea of time,
It is heard in ev'ry nation, any race and ev'ry clime.
If you'll go among the tradesmen and their work of worth inspect,
If you'll tarry with the lowly and their lack of skill detect,
If you'll travel o'er the planet, filled with thought, with action stirred,
In them all you'll find, my brother, that the Negro's voice is heard.
Search the patents of invention, or the soldiers record find,
Peep into the author's study, or the poet keep in mind,
In the avenues of science or the broadest fields of art,
You. will hear the voice of Negroes as they bravely play their part.
As good lawyers and physicians, or as men who're called to preach.
As an orator and statesman who the hearts of people reach,
As you view the great professions that have made the world rejoice,
If you'll listen for a moment, you will hear the Negro's voice.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Must Be Freed
The ante-bellum Negro prayed,
For God to intercede,
And God in answer to him said,
'Your children shall be freed.'
The hand was seen upon the wall,
The fates at once decreed
That Negro bondsmen one and all,
Should soon be free, indeed.
'If Abraham Lincoln's president'
The South said, 'we'll secede;'
They apprehended he'd consent,
For Negroes to be freed.
To battle North against the South,
O'er states rights was agreed,
But echo from the cannon's mouth,
Said, 'Negroes must be freed.'
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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The Door of Hope
The president has thus disclosed
In words his noblest plan:
'The door of hope shall not be closed
Upon the Negro man.
'His opportunities must be
With other men's the same;
As nation's chief I will not see
Him forced in ways of shame.'
Official work he'd scarce begun
When from his lips did fall,
'A special right I give to none,
But equal rights to all.
'Square dealing for the soldiers true,
Who made this country grand;
But more than this no man is due,
And none shall less demand.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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Why Negroes Don't Unite
Why of all the many races in the country where we live,
Do we find so little union as the Negro race can give?
Is it lack of love? or color? who will give the reason true,
Why they cherish opposition more than other peoples do?
We'll examine for a moment, how the Negro race is made,
Now, we find them all complexions, any hue and ev'ry shade,
Scraps of all the human races in among them we can find,
All the many dispositions, ev'ry nation of its kind.
Ev'ry tribe will hang together, though among the Negroes found,
Which will bring about dissensions, on all questions that abound,
Ev'ry blood must have a 'say so,' red or yellow, white or black,
Differ always in opinion, racial union always lack.
Hark! the whites of this assembly to a special plan agree,
Lo! the red men now are holding their opinion, don't you see?
Aye, the blacks must have a hearing in the question of today,
Yellow folks compose a factor and the same will have a say.
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poem by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
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