Josephine Heard: “The Advance of Education”

Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard (1861-1921)

“The Advance of Education”

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What means this host advancing,
With such melodious strain:
These men on steeds a prancing,
This mighty marshaled train.

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They come while drum and fife resound,
And steeds with foam aflecked,
Whose restless feet do spurn the ground,
Their riders gaily decked.

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With banners proudly waving,
Fearless in Freedom’s land,
All opposition braving,
With courage bold they stand.

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Come join the raging battle,
Come join the glorious fray;
Come spite of bullets’ rattle,
This is enlistment day.

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Hark ! hear the Proclamation
Extend o’er all the land;
Come every Tribe and Nation
Join education’s band.

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Now the command is given–
Strike ! strike grim ignorance low;
Strike till her power is given;
Strike a decisive blow.

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“Sunshine after Cloud”

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Come, “Will,” let’s be good friends again,
Our wrongs let’s be forgetting,
For words bring only useless pain,
So wherefore then be fretting.

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Let’s lay aside imagined wrongs,
And ne’er give way to grieving,
Life should be filled with joyous songs,
No time left for deceiving.

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I’ll try and not give way to wrath,
Nor be so often crying;
There must some thorns be in our path,
Let’s move them now by trying.

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How, like a foolish pair were we,
To fume about a letter;
Time is so precious, you and me;
Must spend ours doing better.

“Judge Not”

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Perchance, the friend who cheered thy early years,
Has yielded to the tempter’s power;
Yet, why shrink back and draw away thy skirt,
As though her very touch would do thee hurt?
Wilt thou prove stronger in temptation’s hour?

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Perchance, the one thou trusteth more than life,
Has broken love’s most sacred vow;
Yet judge him not–the victor in life’s strife,
Is he who beareth best the burden of life,
And leaveth God to judge, nor questions how.

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Sing the great song of love to all, and not
The wailing anthems of thy woes;
So live thy life that thou may’st never feel
Afraid to say, as at His throne you kneel,
“Forgive me God, as I forgive my foes!”

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Source for the above poems:   the online archives of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Harlem, New York City)

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Photographs: An unknown Beauty in her finery, perhaps around 1910? / A portrait of, possibly, one Clifford L. Miller, first decade of the 20^th century?

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