Moreland, Girl Singing Ballads by a Paper Lantern, 1782

The GIFT to SING

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,

And blackening clouds about me cling;

But, oh, I have a magic way

To turn the gloom to cheerful day—

      I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,

Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,

With glad defiance in my throat,

I pierce the darkness with a note,

       And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,

Nor dread whatever time may bring;

No nights are dark, no days are long,

While in my heart there swells a song,

       And I can sing.

James Weldon Johnson