We Will Tell Your God On You!

by Amy Carson Phillips

(Adapted by Melvin Newland)

“Night is falling on the Congo,

O’er the jungles far and near.

Soon the blackness will be brooding -

He who walks will walk in fear.

Yet no black man seeks his hut,

All are waiting on the shore,

Gazing, peering through the twilight,

Gazing, peering – something more!

Longing, ah, with what wild longing,

Longing never known before!

For the drums have beat the message,

“Comes again the river spirit,

A great ship – white man aboard!”

And the black men do not fear it,

For the word has passed along;

“White man’s message, hear it, hear it!”

List, there’s the sound of its horn!

Slowly the great ship draws near,

Heeds the signal from the land

Then a voice from white to black man,

“What is it, my brother, my friend?”

And the aged chief doth answer,

Mighty chieftain of the band.

“Come and tell the story, white man.

Tell the story that you know,

That you’ve told the other black men

In the villages below.

Of a Christ who came to save us,

Of a Christ who’ll ease our woe!”

Troubled then the tired white man

Who is going home to rest,

To America, his homeland,

To America, the blest.

As he speaks his heart is breaking,

Faint is he and sore distressed.

“Black chief, giant of the village,

I am coming back again.

But now I hasten to my homeland.

Time permits me not, my friend.

But a year from now you’ll see me.

I will tell the story then!”

The black chief slowly turned away –

Bent his head and sunk’ his chest,

Limp and swaying all his frame –

Then resolve did fill his breast!

“I will tell your God on you,

White man, who so loveth rest.

I will tell your God on you!

White man, tell me! Let me learn.

See, my race is almost done.

I will die with set of sun!”

But the white man dropped his head,

Slowly, sadly, turned and fled.

And down the river his great ship sped.

In the heathen village there,

Darkness deepened to despair.

Fallen stark and dead the chief.

Stricken every soul with grief.

And the horrors of the night

Stalked and brooded till the light.

But the black men took a vow.

Will you hear it, white men, now?

“We will tell your God on you.

Tell him on your brothers, too.

Surely as your God is true,

We will tell your God on you!”

O friends, do your hear that cry?

May it prod you till you die.

May it, oh, become the cry

That will quicken every breast

That hath known our God on high.

May it never be suppressed!

May it prod and prick you through

Till you rise and duty do.

“We will tell your God on you.

We will tell your God on you!”

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