His expansive career included become a teacher and school principal, a practicing lawyer, and a writer for musical theatre in partnership with his brother Rosamond. He served as a U.S. consul in Venezuela, and later in Nicaragua, and then became an editorial writer for the New York Age. In 1917 he published his first poetry collection, Fifty Years and Other Poems, James Johnson worked for many years as an advocate for Black rights with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, until 1930 when he became a part-time teacher at Fisk University.
Although agnostic he was greatly influenced by the spiritual heritage of the Black church. His influential compilations, The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) and it’s follow up, drew attention to this important musical tradition. This work also influenced his most celebrated poetry collection God’s Trombones (1927, Viking) in which he found a dignified form for presenting Black religious experience and practice.
The following poem is from God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. The book was illustrated by Aaron Douglas.
“© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.”
Listen Lord
A Prayer
O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before thy throne of grace.
O Lord — this morning —
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning —
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord — open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.
Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners —
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.
Lord — ride by this morning —
Mount your milk-white horse,
And ride-a this morning —
And in your ride, ride by old hell,
Ride by the dingy gates of hell,
And stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge.
And now, O Lord, this man of God,
Who breaks the bread of life this morning —
Shadow him in the hollow of thy hand,
And keep him out of the gunshot of the devil.
Take him, Lord — this morning —
Wash him with hyssop inside and out,
Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.
Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,
And make his words sledge hammers of truth —
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning —
Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let him look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine his imagination,
Put perpetual motion in his arms,
Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,
Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,
And set his tongue on fire.
And now, O Lord —
When I've done drunk my last cup of sorrow —
When I've been called everything but a child of God —
When I'm done travelling up the rough side of the mountain —
O — Mary's Baby —
When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death —
When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet —
Lower me to my dusty grave in peace
To wait for that great gittin' up morning — Amen.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.
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