James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922.

A Prayer

AS I lie in bed,

Flat on my back;

There passes across my ceiling

An endless panorama of things—

Quick steps of gay-voiced children,

Adolescence in its wondering silences,

Maid and man on moonlit summer’s eve,

Women in the holy glow of Motherhood,

Old men gazing silently thru the twilight

Into the beyond.

O God, give me words to make my dream-children live.