Tell me what’s the Negro doing?
And what course is he pursuing?
What achievements is he strewing
By the way?”
Many say he’s retrograding
Very fast;
Others say his glory’s fading,—
Cannot last;
That his prospects now are blighted,
That his chances have been slighted,
This his wrongs cannot be righted.
Time has passed.
Friends, lift up your eyes; look higher;
Higher still.
There’s the vanguard of our army
On the hill.
You’ve been looking at the rear guard.
Lift your eyes, look farther forward;
Thousands are still pressing starward—
Ever will.
IV. Roscoe C. Jamison
Roscoe C. Jamison was fortunate in leaving behind him a friend at his early death, some three years since, who treasured his fugitive verses sufficiently to gather them together, though but a handful, and send them out to the world in a little pamphlet. Fortunate also was he in another friend able to write his elegy:
