God of Our Weary Years

As I read about the Suzerainty treaty form, the format, the tempo and the temper of its parts, I was reminded of how, in my mind at least, the song entitled “Lift Every Voice and Sing” approximates it. Frick outlines the essential elements of this form as Preamble, Historical Prologue, Stipulations, Deposit and public reading, List of witnesses, and Blessings and curses. It appears to me that the Anthem meets these criteria, and could serve, one could argue, as a form of treaty between God and those who hope for freedom from racial oppression. The song, written by James Weldon Johnson, was published in 1949, adopted by the NAACP, and came to be known as The Negro National Anthem. To me it can serve as the reminder of treaty, covenant, and agreement.
PREAMBLE: Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.
HISTORICAL PROLUGUE: Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
STIPULATIONS/OBLIGATIONS: Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet, Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
LIST OF WITNESSES: We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last, Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

DEPOSIT AND PUBLIC READING: God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
BLESSINGS: Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand. True to our GOD, True to our native land.