A Negro Sermon
by James Weldon Johnson
1871 - 1928
And God stepped out on
space,
And he looked around and
said:
I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God
could see
Darkness covered
everything,
Blacker than a hundred
midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up
on one side,
And the light stood
shining on the other,
And God said: That’s good!
Then God reached out and
took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light
around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun
a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was
left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a
shining ball
And flung it against the
darkness,
Spangling the night with
the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That’s good!
Then God himself stepped
down—
And the sun was on his
right hand,
And the moon was on his
left;
The stars were clustered
about his head,
And the earth was under his
feet.
And God walked, and where
he trod
His footsteps hollowed the
valleys out
And bulged the mountains
up.
Then he stopped and looked
and saw
That the earth was hot and
barren.
So God stepped over to the
edge of the world
And he spat out the seven
seas—
He batted his eyes, and
the lightnings flashed—
He clapped his hands, and
the thunders rolled—
And the waters above the
earth came down,
The cooling waters came
down.
Then the green grass
sprouted,
And the little red flowers
blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his
finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his
arms,
The lakes cuddled down in
the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to
the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around
his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm
and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the
land,
And he said: Bring forth!
Bring forth!
And quicker than God could
drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the
seas,
Roamed the forests and the
woods,
And split the air with
their wings.
And God said: That’s good!
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his
little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living
things,
And God said: I’m lonely
still.
Then God sat down—
On the side of a hill
where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he
sat down;
With his head in his
hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll make
me a man!
Up from the bed of the
river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the
river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God
Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed
it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the
most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in
the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over
her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of
clay
Till he shaped it in is
his own image;
Then into it he blew the
breath of life,
And man became a living
soul.
Amen. Amen.
