This Is My Jamaica

Through the struggle of her years Through the tyranny of tears She barefooted braved the sun Breasting children upward to sky The day beyond the blue horizon Her songs masked sorrows from the eye. Through the slanting slivers of rain Through the quiet pangs of pain Her hands were blistered in the care Of histories with which she robed them And when stars came late, no fear Turned her back from the road she charted them Through the rising tides of flood Through her blood soaked in the mud She stumbled but would not fall Mettling heart with self belief, she Gave God praise, and would not crawl This woman forging iron history. Let others see here white beaches or gold Let see palm trees swaying stately and bold Or waters like sapphire in the sun I see my Jamaica, and her children laughing This my country where blue mountains run This my Jamaica from her Stony Gut rising.