Fifty Years and Other Poems Author:James Weldon Johnson _If homely virtues draw from me a tune In happy jingle or a half-sad croon; Or if the smoldering future should inspire My hand to strike the seer's prophetic lyre; Or if injustice, brutishness and wrong Should make a blasting trumpet of my song; O God, give beauty and strength--truth to my words, Oh, may they fall like sweet... more »ly cadenced chords, Or burn like beacon fires from out the dark, Or speed like arrows, swift and sure, to the mark._« less