What are the first verses to 'Lift Every Voice in Sing'?

Answer 1

First of all, the song is entitled: "Lift ev'ry voice and sing" by James Weldon Johnson. The song was known as the negro national anthem. These are the words: : Lift every voice and sing, : 'Til earth and heaven ring, : Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; : Let our rejoicing rise : High as the listening skies, : Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. : Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, : Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; : Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, : Let us march on 'til victory is won. : Stony the road we trod, : Bitter the chast'ning rod, : Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; : Yet with a steady beat, : Have not our weary feet : Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? : We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, : We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, : Out from the gloomy past, : 'Til now we stand at last : Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. : God of our weary years, : God of our silent tears, : Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; : Thou who has by Thy might : Led us into the light, : Keep us forever in the path, we pray. : Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, : Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; : Shadowed beneath Thy hand, : May we forever stand, : True to our God, : True to our native land.