The burden of my friendship--
I have drunk deep
At your crystal pool,
And in return
I have polluted its waters
With the bile of my hatred.
I have flooded your soul
With tortuous thoughts,
I have played Iscariot
To your Pythias....
_To Mother_
I came
In the blinding sweep
Of ecstatic pain,
I go
In the throbbing pulse
Of aching space--
In the eons between
I piled upon you
Pain on pain
Ache on ache
And yet as I go
I shall know
That you will grieve
And want me back....
_To B----_
You have freed me--
In opening wide the doors
Of flesh
You have freed me
Of the binding leash.
I have climbed the heights
Of white disaster
My body screaming
In the silver crash of passion ...
Before you gave yourself
To him
I had chained myself
For you.
But when at last
You lowered your proud flag
In surrender complete
You gave me too, as hostage--
And I have wept my joy
At the dawn-tipped shrine
Of many breasts.
_To Jean_
When you poured your love
Like molten flame
Into the throbbing mold
Of her pulsing veins
Leaving her blood a river of fire
And her arteries channels of light,
I hated you ...
Hated with that primal hate
That has its wells
In the flesh of me
And the flesh of you
And the flesh of her
I hated you--
Hated with envy
Your mastery of her being ...
With one fleshy gesture
You pricked the iridescent bubble
Of my dreams
And so to make
Your conquest more sweet
I tell you now
That I hated you.
_To Catalina_
Love thy piano, Oh girl,
It will give you back
Note for note
The harmonies of your soul.
It will sing back to you
The high songs of your heart.
It will give
As well as take....
_To Mariette_
I sought consolation
In the sorrow of your eyes.
You sought reguerdon
In the crying of my heart ...
We found that shattered dreamers
Can be bitter hosts....
_To_ ----
You call it
Death of the Spirit
And I call it Life ...
The vigor of vibration,
The muffled knocks,
The silver sheen of passion’s flood,
The ecstasy of pain ...
You call it
Death of the Spirit
And I call it Life.
_To Telie_
You have made my voice
A rippling laugh
But my heart
A crying thing ...
’Tis better thus:
A fleeting kiss
And then,
The dark....
_To “Chick”_
Oh Achilles of the moleskins
And the gridiron
Do not wonder
Nor doubt that this is I
That lies so calmly here--
This is the same exultant beast
That so joyously
Ran the ball with you
In those far flung days of abandon.
You remember how recklessly
We revelled in the heat and the dust
And the swirl of conflict?
You remember they called us
The Terrible Two?
And you remember
After we had battered our heads
And our bodies
Against the stonewall of their defense,--
You remember the signal I would call
And how you would look at me
In faith and admiration
And say “Let’s go,” ...
How the lines would clash
And strain,
And how I would slip through
Fighting and squirming
Over the line
To victory.
You remember, Chick? ...
When you gaze at me here
Let that same light
Of faith and admiration
Shine in your eyes
For I have battered the stark stonewall
Before me ...
I have kept faith with you
And now
I have called my signal,
Found my opening
And slipped through
Fighting and squirming
Over the line
To victory....
_To Wanda_
To you, so far away
So cold and aloof,
To you, who knew me so well,
This is my last Grand Gesture
This is my last Great Effect
And as I go winging
Through the black doors of eternity
Is that thin sound I hear
Your applause?...
NIGGER
A Chant for Children
Little Black boy
Chased down the street--
“Nigger, nigger never die
Black face an’ shiney eye,
Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”
Hannibal ... Hannibal
Bangin’ thru the Alps
Licked the proud Romans,
Ran home with their scalps--
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”
Othello ... black man
Mighty in war
Listened to Iago
Called his wife a whore--
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”
Crispus ... Attucks
Bullets in his chest
Red blood of freedom
Runnin’ down his vest
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”
Toussant ... Toussant
Made the French flee
Fought like a demon
Set his people free--
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”
Jesus ... Jesus
Son of the Lord
--Spit in his face
--Nail him on a board
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger ...”
Little Black boy
Runs down the street--
“Nigger, nigger never die
Black face an’ shiney eye,
Nigger ... nigger ... nigger ...”
LEWIS ALEXANDER
Lewis Alexander was born July 4, 1900, at Washington,
D. C. He was educated in the public schools of
Washington and at Howard University where he was a
member of the Howard Players. He has also studied
at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a member of
the Ethiopian Art Theatre for the season 1922-1923 playing
in _Salome_ and _The Comedy of Errors_ on Broadway.
As the result of a recent tour of North and South Carolina
he edited in May 1927 the Negro Number of the
_Carolina Magazine_. He has been writing poetry since
1917, specializing in Japanese forms. Two Little Theatre
groups in Washington, The Ira Aldridge Players of
the Grover Cleveland School and the Randall Community
Center Players have been under his direction.
NEGRO WOMAN
The sky hangs heavy tonight
Like the hair of a Negro woman.
The scars of the moon are curved
Like the wrinkles on the brow of a Negro woman.
The stars twinkle tonight
Like the glaze in a Negro woman’s eyes,
Drinking the tears set flowing by an aging hurt
Gnawing at her heart.
The earth trembles tonight
Like the quiver of a Negro woman’s eye-lids cupping tears.
AFRICA
Thou art not dead, although the spoiler’s hand
Lies heavy as death upon thee; though the wrath
Of its accursed might is in thy path
And has usurped thy children of their land;
Though yet the scourges of a monstrous band
Roam on thy ruined fields, thy trampled lanes,
Thy ravaged homes and desolated fanes;
Thou art not dead, but sleeping,--Motherland.
A mighty country, valorous and free,
Thou shalt outlive this terror and this pain;
Shall call thy scattered children back to thee,
Strong with the memory of their brothers slain;
And rise from out thy charnel house to be
Thine own immortal, brilliant self again!
TRANSFORMATION
I return the bitterness,
Which you gave to me;
When I wanted loveliness
Tantalant and free.
I return the bitterness
It is washed by tears;
Now it is a loveliness
Garnished through the years.
I return it loveliness,
Having made it so;
For I wore the bitterness
From it long ago.
THE DARK BROTHER
“Lo, I am black but I am comely too,
Black as the night, black as the deep dark caves.
I am the scion of a race of slaves
Who helped to build a nation strong that you
And I may stand within the world’s full view,
Fearless and firm as dreadnoughts on rough waves;
Holding a banner high whose floating braves
The opposition of the tried untrue.
Casting an eye of love upon my face,
Seeing a newer light within my eyes,
A rarer beauty in your brother race
Will merge upon your visioning fullwise.
Though I am black my heart through love is pure,
And you through love my blackness shall endure!”
TANKA I-VIII
I
Could I but retrace
The winding stairs fate built me.
They fell from my feet.
Now I stand on the high round.
Down beneath height above depth--
II
Through the eyes of life
I looked in at my own heart:
A long furrowed field
Grown cement waiting for seed
Baking in desolation.
III
Drink in moods of joy!
Why should the sky be lonely?
Neither sun nor moon--
How my heart is shy of night
Like Autumn’s leaf brown pendants.
IV
Cold against the sky
The blue jays cried at dawning.
The larks where are they?
Heavily upon the air
My ears tuned in to listen.
V
So this is the reed?
The very pipes for singing--
Life plays me new songs.
Wistfully from out the dawn
The crows broke across the sky!
VI
And now Spring has come
Blossoming up my garden.
I alone unchanged.
Moving in my house of Autumn.
One leaf alone saves a tree.
VII
By the pool of life
Willows are drooping tonight
I can see no stars.
What dances in the water?
O my clouds dripping with tears.
VIII
Could I hear your voice
O but this silence is sweet
Words mar all beauty.
Turn then into your own heart
And pluck the roots from the soil--
JAPANESE HOKKU
O apple blossoms
Give me your words of silence,
Yes, your charming speech.
* * * * *
If you would know me,
Do not regard this display;
Mingle with my speech.
* * * * *
Why sit like the sphinx,
Watching the caravan pass?
Join in the parade.
* * * * *
What if the wind blows?
What if the leaves are scattered,
Now that they are dead?
* * * * *
While trimming the plants
I saw some flowers drooping.
I am a flower.
* * * * *
This is but my robe,
His Majesty gave to me.
Garments will decay.
* * * * *
On the flowering twig,
Lo! the robin is singing.
It must be spring.
* * * * *
Looking up the hill
The road was long before me.
This road is longer.
* * * * *
Death is not cruel
From what I have seen of life;
Nothing else remains.
* * * * *
Life is history.
Turn not away from the book.
Write on every page!
* * * * *
If you had not sung
Then what would I imitate,
Happy nightingale?
* * * * *
Sitting by the pool,
I looked in and saw my face.
O that I were blind!
DAY AND NIGHT
The day is a Negro
Yelling out of breath.
The night is a Negro
Laughing up to death.
The day is a jazz band
Blasting loud and wild.
The night is a jazz band
Moaning Blues songs, child.
The day is the sunshine
Undressed in the street.
The night is the sunshine
Dressed from head to feet.
I am like a rainbow
Arched across the way.
Yes, I am a rainbow
Being night nor day.
STERLING A. BROWN
I was born in Washington, D. C., the first of May,
1901. I received primary and secondary education in the
Public Schools of that city, and on a farm near Laurel,
Md.; entered Williams College in 1918, was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa in 1921, graduated in 1922; and received
my Master of Arts Degree at Harvard in 1923. Since that
time I have been seeking a more liberal education teaching
school. I have been inflicted on unsuspecting, helpless
students; teaching diverse things at Manassas Summer
School in Virginia, Rhetoric and Literature at Virginia
Seminary and College, Lynchburg, Va., and Literature
at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Mo.
From early years I have _lisped in numbers_ but the
numbers seem improper fractions. I have always been interested
in people, particularly and generally, and in
books. The list runs from Homer to Housman.
Except for an essay on Roland Hayes submitted to an
_Opportunity_ contest, and occasional poems and reviews,
I have published nothing of the voluminous works cluttering
my desk.
ODYSSEY OF BIG BOY
Lemme be wid Casey Jones,
Lemme be wid Stagolee,
Lemme be wid such like men
When Death takes hol’ on me,
When Death takes hol’ on me....
Done skinned as a boy in Kentucky hills,
Druv steel dere as a man,
Done stripped tobacco in Virginia fiels’
Alongst de River Dan,
Alongst de River Dan;
Done mined de coal in West Virginia
Liked dat job jes’ fine
Till a load o’ slate curved roun’ my head
Won’t work in no mo’ mine,
Won’t work in no mo’ mine;
Done shocked de corn in Marylan,
In Georgia done cut cane,
Done planted rice in South Caline,
But won’t do dat again
Do dat no mo’ again.
Been roustabout in Memphis,
Dockhand in Baltimore,
Done smashed up freight on Norfolk wharves
A fust class stevedore,
A fust class stevedore....
Done slung hash yonder in de North
On de ole Fall River Line
Done busted suds in li’l New Yawk
Which ain’t no work o’ mine--
Lawd, ain’t no work o’ mine;
Done worked and loafed on such like jobs
Seen what dey is to see
Done had my time with a pint on my hip
An’ a sweet gal on my knee
Sweet mommer on my knee:
Had stovepipe blonde in Macon
Yaller gal in Marylan
In Richmond had a choklit brown
Called me huh monkey man--
Huh big fool monkey man.
Had two fair browns in Arkansaw
And three in Tennessee
Had Creole gal in New Orleans
Sho Gawd did two time me--
Lawd two time, fo’ time me--
But best gal what I evah had
Done put it over dem
A gal in Southwest Washington
At Four’n half and M--
Four’n half and M....
Done took my livin’ as it came
Done grabbed my joy, done risked my life
Train done caught me on de trestle
Man done caught me wid his wife
His doggone purty wife ...
I done had my women,
I done had my fun
Cain’t do much complainin’
When my jag is done,
Lawd, Lawd, my jag is done.
An’ all dat Big Boy axes
When time comes fo’ to go
Lemme be wid John Henry, steel drivin’ man
Lemme be wid ole Jazzbo;
Lemme be wid ole Jazzbo....
MAUMEE RUTH
Might as well bury her
And bury her deep,
Might as well put her
Where she can sleep.
Might as well lay her
Out in her shiny black;
And for the love of God
Not wish her back.
Maum Sal may miss her
Maum Sal, she only
With no one now to scoff
Sal may be lonely....
Nobody else there is
Who will be caring
How rocky was the road
For her wayfaring;
Nobody be heeding in
Cabin, or town
That she is lying here
In her best gown.
Boy that she suckled
How should he know
Hiding in city holes
Sniffing the ‘snow’?
And how should the news
Pierce Harlem’s din
To reach her baby gal,
Sodden with gin?
To cut her withered heart
They cannot come again,
Preach her the lies about
Jordan and then
Might as well drop her
Deep in the ground
Might as well pray for her
That she sleep sound....
LONG GONE
I laks yo’ kin’ of lovin’
Ain’t never caught you wrong
But it jes ain’ nachal
Fo’ to stay here long;
It jes ain’ nachal
Fo’ a railroad man
With a itch fo’ travellin’
He cain’t understan’....
I looks at de rails
An’ I looks at de ties,
An I hears an ole freight
Puffin’ up de rise,
An’ at nights on my pallet
When all is still
I listens fo’ de empties
Bumpin’ up de hill;
When I oughta be quiet
I is got a itch
Fo’ to hear de whistle blow
Fo’ de crossin’, or de switch,
An’ I knows de time’s a nearin’
When I got to ride
Though its homelike and happy
At yo’ side.
You is done all you could do
To make me stay
Tain’t no fault of yours I’se leavin’--
I’se jes dataway.
I is got to see some people
I ain’ never seen
Gotta highball thu some country
Whah I never been....
I don’t know which way I’m travellin’--
Far or near,
All I knows fo’ certain is
I cain’t stay here.
Ain’t no call at all, sweet woman
Fo’ to carry on,--
Jes my name and jes my habit
To be Long Gone....
TO A CERTAIN LADY, IN HER
GARDEN
(_A. S._)
Lady, my lady, come from out the garden,
Clayfingered, dirtysmocked, and in my time
I too shall learn the quietness of Arden,
Knowledge so long a stranger to my rhyme.
What were more fitting than your springtime task?
Here, close engirdled by your vines and flowers
Surely there is no other grace to ask,
No better cloister from the bickering hours.
A step beyond, the dingy streets begin
With all their farce, and silly tragedy--But
here, unmindful of the futile din
You grow your flowers, far wiser certainly,
You and your garden sum the same to me,
A sense of strange and momentary pleasure,
And beauty snatched--oh, fragmentarily
Perhaps, yet who can boast of other seizure?
Oh, you have somehow robbed, I know not how
The secret of the loveliness of these
Whom you have served so long. Oh, shameless, now
You flaunt the winnings of your thieveries.
Thus, I exclaim against you, profiteer....
For purpled evenings spent in pleasing toil,
Should you have gained so easily the dear
Capricious largesse of the miser soil?
Colorful living in a world grown dull,
Quiet sufficiency in weakling days,
Delicate happiness, more beautiful
For lighting up belittered, grimy ways--
Surely I think I shall remember this,
You in your old, rough dress, bedaubed with clay,
Your smudgy face parading happiness,
Life’s puzzle solved. Perhaps, in turn, you may.
One time, while clipping bushes, tending vines,
(Making your brave, sly mock at dastard days,)
Laugh gently at these trivial, truthful lines--
And that will be sufficient for my praise.
SALUTAMUS
(O Gentlemen the time of Life is short--Henry IV)
The bitterness of days like these we know;
Much, much we know, yet cannot understand
What was our crime that such a searing brand
Not of our choosing, keeps us hated so.
Despair and disappointment only grow,
Whatever seeds are planted from our hand,
What though some roads wind through a gladsome land?
It is a gloomy path that we must go.
And yet we know relief will come some day
For these seared breasts; and lads as brave again
Will plant and find a fairer crop than ours.
It must be due our hearts, our minds, our powers;
These are the beacons to blaze out the way.
_We must plunge onward; onward, gentlemen_....
CHALLENGE
I said, in drunken pride of youth and you
That mischief-making Time would never dare
Play his ill-humoured tricks upon us two,
Strange and defiant lovers that we were.
I said that even Death, Highwayman Death,
Could never master lovers such as we,
That even when his clutch had throttled breath,
My hymns would float in praise, undauntedly.
I did not think such words were bravado.
Oh, I think honestly we knew no fear,
Of Time or Death. We loved each other so.
And thus, with you believing me, I made
My prophecies, rebellious, unafraid....
And that was foolish, wasn’t it, my dear?
RETURN
I have gone back in boyish wonderment
To things that I had foolishly put by....
Have found an alien and unknown content
In seeing how some bits of cloud-filled sky
Are framed in bracken pools; through chuckling hours
Have watched the antic frogs, or curiously
Have numbered all the unnamed, vagrant flowers,
That fleck the unkempt meadows, lavishly.
Or where a headlong toppling stream has stayed
Its racing, lulled to quiet by the song
Bursting from out the thickleaved oaken shade,
There I have lain while hours sauntered past--
I have found peacefulness somewhere at last,
Have found a quiet needed for so long.
CLARISSA SCOTT DELANY
“I was born at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, in the
Twentieth Century, and spent my early years in what is
known as the ‘Black Belt.’ This was followed by seven
years in New England (1916-1923), three at Bradford
Academy, and four at Wellesley College, where my
southern blood became tinged with something of the austerity
of that section. Three years of teaching in the
Dunbar High School of Washington, D. C., convinced me
that though the children were interesting, teaching was
not my _metier_. In the fall of 1926 I was married. Since
completing a study of Delinquency and Neglect among
Negro children in New York City, my career has been
that of a wife, and as careers go, that is an interesting
and absorbing one.”
JOY
Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail,
Like the roistering wind
That laughs through stalwart pines.
It floods me like the sun
On rain-drenched trees
That flash with silver and green.
I abandon myself to joy--
I laugh--I sing.
Too long have I walked a desolate way,
Too long stumbled down a maze
Bewildered.
SOLACE
My window opens out into the trees
And in that small space
Of branches and of sky
I see the seasons pass
Behold the tender green
Give way to darker heavier leaves.
The glory of the autumn comes
When steeped in mellow sunlight
The fragile, golden leaves
Against a clear blue sky
Linger in the magic of the afternoon
And then reluctantly break off
And filter down to pave
A street with gold.
Then bare, gray branches
Lift themselves against the
Cold December sky
Sometimes weaving a web
Across the rose and dusk of late sunset
Sometimes against a frail new moon
And one bright star riding
A sky of that dark, living blue
Which comes before the heaviness
Of night descends, or the stars
Have powdered the heavens.
Winds beat against these trees;
The cold, but gentle rain of spring
Touches them lightly
The summer torrents strive
To lash them into a fury
And seek to break them--
But they stand.
My life is fevered
And a restlessness at times
An agony--again a vague
And baffling discontent
Possesses me.
I am thankful for my bit of sky
And trees, and for the shifting
Pageant of the seasons.
Such beauty lays upon the heart
A quiet.
Such eternal change and permanence
Take meaning from all turmoil
And leave serenity
Which knows no pain.
INTERIM
The night was made for rest and sleep,
For winds that softly sigh;
It was not made for grief and tears;
So then why do I cry?
The wind that blows through leafy trees
Is soft and warm and sweet;
For me the night is a gracious cloak
To hide my soul’s defeat.
Just one dark hour of shaken depths,
Of bitter black despair--
Another day will find me brave,
And not afraid to dare.
THE MASK
So detached and cool she is
No motion e’er betrays
The secret life within her soul,
The anguish of her days.
She seems to look upon the world
With cold ironic eyes,
To spurn emotion’s fevered sway,
To scoff at tears and sighs.
But once a woman with a child
Passed by her on the street,
And once she heard from casual lips
A man’s name, bitter-sweet.
Such baffled yearning in her eyes,
Such pain upon her face!
I turned aside until the mask
Was slipped once more in place.
LANGSTON HUGHES
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on the
first of February, 1902. His mother was a school teacher,
his father a lawyer. During most of his childhood he
lived with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas, where
he went to school. This old lady, Mary Sampson Patterson
Leary Langston, was the last surviving widow of
John Brown’s Raid, her first husband having been one
of the five colored men to die so gloriously at Harper’s
Ferry. She had then married Charles Langston, brother
of the Negro senator, John M. Langston, and in the seventies
they came to Kansas where the mother of the poet
was born.
When Langston Hughes was thirteen this grandmother
died and the boy went to live with his mother in Lincoln,
Illinois. A year later they moved to Cleveland where he
attended and was graduated from the Central High School.
Then followed fifteen months in Mexico where his father
had been located for some years. Here the young man
learned Spanish, taught English, and attended bull-fights.
Here, too, he wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” his
first poem to be published in the magazines.
In 1921 he went to New York for a year at Columbia
University. A break with his father followed and he
secured work for the summer on a truck farm on Staten
Island. Then for almost two years he travelled as a
member of the crew of freight steamers voyaging to the
West Coast of Africa and Northern Europe. In February,
1924, he went to Paris. When he arrived he had seven
dollars in his pockets; so he soon found a job as doorman
in a Montmartre cabaret. Later he became second cook
and pan-cake maker at the Grand Duc, a Negro night
club where Buddy Gilmore sometimes played and Florence
sang. That summer he went to Italy, and September
found him stranded in Genoa. He worked his way back
to New York on a tramp steamer, painting and scrubbing
decks.
A year in Washington followed where he worked in the
office of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and
History, and later as a bus boy at the Wardman Park
Hotel. There Vachel Lindsay read some of his poems and
he was discovered by the newspapers. Then his first
book, _The Weary Blues_, appeared. He has now resumed
his formal education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania,
which he says is a place of beauty and the ideal
college for a poet. His second book of poems, _Fine Clothes
for the Jew_, is a study in racial rhythms.
Lincoln University
April 13, 1927
I, TOO[16]
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,--
I, too, am America.
PRAYER[17]
I ask you this:
Which way to go?
I ask you this:
Which sin to bear?
Which crown to put
Upon my hair?
I do not know,
Lord God,
I do not know.
SONG FOR A DARK GIRL[18]
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
HOMESICK BLUES[19]
De railroad bridge’s
A sad song in de air.
De railroad bridge’s
A sad song in de air.
Ever time de trains pass
I wants to go somewhere.
I went down to de station.
Ma heart was in ma mouth.
Went down to de station.
Heart was in ma mouth.
Lookin’ for a box car
To roll me to de South.
Homesick blues, Lawd,
’S a terrible thing to have.
Homesick blues is
A terrible thing to have.
To keep from cryin’
I opens ma mouth an’ laughs.
FANTASY IN PURPLE[20]
Beat the drums of tragedy for me.
Beat the drums of tragedy and death.
And let the choir sing a stormy song
To drown the rattle of my dying breath.