Part 3
Then God himself stepped down-- And the sun was on His right hand, And the moon was on His left; The stars were clustered about His head, And the earth was under His feet. And God walked, and where He trod His footsteps hollowed the valleys out And bulged the mountains up.
Then He stopped and looked and saw That the earth was hot and barren. So God stepped over to the edge of the world And He spat out the seven seas; He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed; He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled; And the waters above the earth came down, The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted, And the little red flowers blossomed, The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky, And the oak spread out his arms, The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground, And the rivers ran down to the sea; And God smiled again, And the rainbow appeared, And curled itself around His shoulder.
Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand Over the sea and over the land, And He said, “_Bring forth! Bring forth!_” And quicker than God could drop His hand, Fishes and fowls And beasts and birds Swam the rivers and the seas, Roamed the forests and the woods, And split the air with their wings. And God said, “_That’s good!_”
Then God walked around, And God looked around On all that He had made. He looked at His sun, And He looked at His moon, And He looked at His little stars; He looked on His world With all its living things, And God said, “_I’m lonely still._”
Then God sat down On the side of a hill where He could think; By a deep, wide river He sat down; With His head in His hands, God thought and thought, Till He thought, “_I’ll make me a man!_”
Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled Him down; And there the great God Almighty Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand; This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.
THE WHITE WITCH
O brothers mine, take care! Take care! The great white witch rides out to-night. Trust not your prowess nor your strength, Your only safety lies in flight; For in her glance is a snare, And in her smile there is a blight.
The great white witch you have not seen? Then, younger brothers mine, forsooth, Like nursery children you have looked For ancient hag and snaggle-tooth; But no, not so; the witch appears In all the glowing charms of youth.
Her lips are like carnations, red, Her face like new-born lilies, fair, Her eyes like ocean waters, blue, She moves with subtle grace and air, And all about her head there floats The golden glory of her hair.
But though she always thus appears In form of youth and mood of mirth, Unnumbered centuries are hers, The infant planets saw her birth; The child of throbbing Life is she, Twin sister to the greedy earth.
And back behind those smiling lips, And down within those laughing eyes, And underneath the soft caress Of hand and voice and purring sighs, The shadow of the panther lurks, The spirit of the vampire lies.
For I have seen the great white witch, And she has led me to her lair, And I have kissed her red, red lips And cruel face so white and fair; Around me she has twined her arms, And bound me with her yellow hair.
I felt those red lips burn and sear My body like a living coal; Obeyed the power of those eyes As the needle trembles to the pole; And did not care although I felt The strength go ebbing from my soul.
Oh! she has seen your strong young limbs, And heard your laughter loud and gay, And in your voices she has caught The echo of a far-off day, When man was closer to the earth; And she has marked you for her prey.
She feels the old Antaean strength In you, the great dynamic beat Of primal passions, and she sees In you the last besieged retreat Of love relentless, lusty, fierce, Love pain-ecstatic, cruel-sweet.
O, brothers mine, take care! Take care! The great white witch rides out to-night. O, younger brothers mine, beware; Look not upon her beauty bright; For in her glance there is a snare, And in her smile there is a blight.
MY CITY
When I come down to sleep death’s endless night, The threshold of the unknown dark to cross, What to me then will be the keenest loss, When this bright world blurs on my fading sight? Will it be that no more I shall see the trees Or smell the flowers or hear the singing birds Or watch the flashing streams or patient herds? No, I am sure it will be none of these.
But, ah! Manhattan’s sights and sounds, her smells, Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comes From being of her a part, her subtile spells, Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums-- O God! the stark, unutterable pity, To be dead, and never again behold my city!
WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS
I was born in Massachusetts and educated in her schools, at Fisk University, at Harvard and Berlin. My first published writings were news notes in _The New York Age_. Then I had an article in _The Atlantic Monthly_, and in 1896 my doctor’s thesis on the slave trade was published as my first book. _The Souls of Black Folk_ appeared in 1903 and one or two other books thereafter. I taught at Wilberforce, Pennsylvania and Atlanta and became editor of _The Crisis_ in 1910.
A LITANY OF ATLANTA[9]
Done at Atlanta, in the Day of Death, 1906.
O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days--
_Hear us, good Lord!_
Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery in Thy sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy heaven, O God crying:
_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_
We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men. When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed: curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home.
_Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!_
And yet whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime, and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity?
_Thou knowest, good God!_
Is this Thy Justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence, and the innocent crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty?
_Justice, O Judge of men!_
Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the fathers dead? Have not seers seen in Heaven’s halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of endless dead?
_Awake, Thou that sleepest!_
Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, thru blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free--far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy and chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust!
_Turn again, O Lord, leave us not to perish in our sin!_
From lust of body and lust of blood _Great God, deliver us!_
From lust of power and lust of gold, _Great God, deliver us!_
From the leagued lying of despot and of brute, _Great God, deliver us!_
A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack and cry of death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars when church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance!
_Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!_
In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they--did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with bloody jaws: _Cease from Crime!_ The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one.
_Turn again our captivity, O Lord!_
Behold this maimed and broken thing; dear God, it was an humble black man who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They told him: _Work and Rise_. He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but some one told how some one said another did--one whom he had never seen nor known. Yet for that man’s crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked to shame, his children, to poverty and evil.
_Hear us, O Heavenly Father!_
Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed brutes who do such deeds high on Thine altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn it in hell forever and forever!
_Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!_
Bewildered we are, and passion-tost, mad with the madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy Throne, we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: _What meaneth this?_ Tell us the Plan; give us the Sign!
_Keep not Thou silence, O God!_
Sit no longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb suffering. Surely, Thou too art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing?
_Ah! Christ of all the Pities!_
Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words. Thou art still the God of our black fathers, and in Thy soul’s soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.
But whisper--speak--call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path.
Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and without the liar. Whither? To death?
_Amen! Welcome dark sleep!_
Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must, and it is red, Ah! God! It is a red and awful shape.
_Selah!_
In yonder East trembles a star. _Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!_
Thy will, O Lord, be done! _Kyrie Eleison!_
Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words. _We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_
We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little children. _We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_
Our voices sink in silence and in night. _Hear us, good Lord!_
In night, O God of a godless land! _Amen!_
In silence, O Silent God. _Selah!_
FOOTNOTES:
[9] From “Dark Water” by W. E. B. Du Bois, Copyright 1920 by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
William Stanley Braithwaite was born in Boston Dec. 6, 1878. He inherited the incentives and ideals of the intellect from an ancestry of British gentlemen. He has written verse and prose and was for many years leading reviewer of books in the _Boston Transcript_. He has published twenty volumes, and his yearly anthology of verse establishes for each year the best poetry printed in the magazines.
SCINTILLA
I kissed a kiss in youth Upon a dead man’s brow; And that was long ago,-- And I’m a grown man now.
It’s lain there in the dust, Thirty years and more;-- My lips that set a light At a dead man’s door.
RYE BREAD
Father John’s bread was made of rye, Felicite’s bread was white; Father John loved the sun noon-high, Felicite, the moon at night.
Father John drank wine with his bread; Felicite drank sweet milk; Father John loved flowers, pungent and red; Felicite, lilies soft as silk.
Father John’s soul was made of bronze, That God’s salt was corroding; Felicite’s soul was a wind that runs With a blue flame of foreboding.
Between these two was the shadow of a dome That cut their lives in twain; But Dionysus led them home In a chariot of pain.
OCTOBER XXIX, 1795
(Keats’ Birthday)
Time sitting on the throne of Memory Bade all her subject Days the past had known Arise and say what thing gave them renown Unforgetable, ‘Rising from the sea, I gave the Genoese his dreams to be;’ ‘I saw the Corsican’s Guards swept down;’ ‘Colonies I made free from a tyrant’s crown;’-- So each Day told its immortality.
And with these blazing triumphs spoke one voice Whose wistful speech no vaunting did employ: ‘I know not if ’twere by Fate’s chance or choice I hold the lowly birth of an English boy; I only know he made man’s heart rejoice Because he played with Beauty for a toy!’
DEL CASCAR
Del Cascar, Del Cascar Stood upon a flaming star, Stood and let his feet hang down Till in China the toes turned brown.
And he reached his fingers over The rim of the sea, like sails from Dover, And caught a Mandarin at prayer, And tickled his nose in Orion’s hair.
The sun went down through crimson bars, And left his blind face battered with stars-- But the brown toes in China kept Hot the tears Del Cascar wept.
JAMES EDWARD McCALL
James Edward McCall was born September 2, 1880 at Montgomery, Ala., and received his early education in the public schools of that city. Graduating from the Alabama State Normal in 1900 he entered Howard University as a medical student the same year, but some months later was forced to abandon his medical career, following an attack of typhoid fever leading to total blindness. Undaunted by this misfortune, he at once set out to develop his literary talent. During this period he read and studied much through the eyes of others, also writing many poems, a number of which were published in Southern dailies, the _New York World_ and other periodicals. _The Montgomery_ (Alabama) _Advertiser_ styled him “The Blind Tom of Literature.” One of his poems, “_Meditation_,” has been compared to Bryant’s “Thanatopsis.”
Despite his handicap, McCall determined to acquire a college education. Accompanied by his sister, he entered Albion College (Michigan) in 1905, where he was graduated two years later, being the only sightless student in the college. Returning to his natal city, he took up journalistic work, for some years being employed as a special writer for one of the local white dailies, also contributing to other periodicals, and ultimately publishing at Montgomery a successful race weekly--_The Emancipator_.
This blind writer is ably assisted in his journalistic work by his wife, to whom he was married in 1914. He and his family moved to Detroit in 1920. He is city editor and editorial writer for the _Detroit Independent_, his editorials in this publication having been widely read and re-published throughout the country during the past two years.
THE NEW NEGRO
He scans the world with calm and fearless eyes, Conscious within of powers long since forgot; At every step, new man-made barriers rise To bar his progress--but he heeds them not. He stands erect, though tempests round him crash, Though thunder bursts and billows surge and roll; He laughs and forges on, while lightnings flash Along the rocky pathway to his goal. Impassive as a Sphinx, he stares ahead-- Foresees new empires rise and old ones fall; While caste-mad nations lust for blood to shed, He sees God’s finger writing on the wall. With soul awakened, wise and strong he stands, Holding his destiny within his hands.
ANGELINA WELD GRIMKÉ
Angelina Weld Grimké was born in Boston, Mass., February 27, 1880. She was a student at Carleton Academy, Northfield, Minn., Cushing Academy, Ashburnham, Mass., and Girls’ Latin School, Boston. In 1902 she was graduated from the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. In 1902 she began her career as a teacher in the Armstrong Manual Training School in Washington, D. C.; since 1916 she has taught in the Dunbar High School in the same city. She is the author of a three act play _Rachel_ published in 1920, short stories, and numerous poems.
HUSHED BY THE HANDS OF SLEEP
(To Dr. George F. Grant)
_I_
Hushed by the hands of Sleep, By the beautiful hands of Sleep. Very gentle and quiet he lies, With a little smile of sweet surprise, Just softly hushed at lips and eyes, Hushed by the hands of Sleep, By the beautiful hands of Sleep.
_II_
Hushed by the hands of Sleep, By the beautiful hands of Sleep. Death leaned down as his eyes grew dim, And his face, I know, was not strange, not grim, But oh! it was beautiful to him, Hushed by the hands of Sleep, By the beautiful hands of Sleep.
GREENNESS
Tell me is there anything lovelier, Anything more quieting Than the green of little blades of grass And the green of little leaves?
Is not each leaf a cool green hand, Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger, Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?
THE EYES OF MY REGRET
Always at dusk, the same tearless experience, The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path To the same well-worn rock; The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun, The same tints--rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey, Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily; Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to a point; Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars, Two eyes unfathomable, soul-searing, Watching, watching--watching me; The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will dusk after dusk; The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the night, chin on knees, Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly miserable,--The eyes of my Regret.
GRASS FINGERS
Touch me, touch me, Little cool grass fingers, Elusive, delicate grass fingers. With your shy brushings, Touch my face-- My naked arms-- My thighs-- My feet. Is there nothing that is kind? You need not fear me. Soon I shall be too far beneath you, For you to reach me, even, With your tiny, timorous toes.
SURRENDER
We ask for peace. We, at the bound O life, are weary of the round In search of Truth. We know the quest Is not for us, the vision blest Is meant for other eyes. Uncrowned, We go, with heads bowed to the ground, And old hands, gnarled and hard and browned. Let us forget the past unrest,-- We ask for peace.
Our strainéd ears are deaf,--no sound May reach them more; no sight may wound Our worn-out eyes. We gave our best, And, while we totter down the West, Unto that last, that open mound,-- We ask for peace.
THE WAYS O’ MEN
’Tis queer, it is, the ways o’ men, Their comin’s and their goin’s; For there’s the grey road, The straight road With the grey dust liftin’ With ev’ry step And the little roads off-flingin’.
Maybe it’s a bit of a sly field That crooks a finger to them And sends them to the turnin’; Or the round firm bosom Of a little hill Acallin’ to them, them with their heads That heavy; Or maybe it’s the black look Given out of the tail of the eye; Or a white word, wingin’; Maybe it’s only the back of a little tot’s neck In the sunlight; Or the red lips of a woman Parting slow.... Sure there’s no tellin’.
One I saw goin’ towards a white star At the edge of a daffydill sky, Its lights kissin’ straight into his eyes. Maybe it’s a gold piece To be taken from another In the dark; Or the neat place between the ribs Waitin’ for the knife That one comes after carryin’ for it. ’Tis few, it is, that goes with the grey road The straight road All the way, With the grey dust liftin’ at ev’ry step.
’Tis queer, it is, the ways o’ men, With a level look at you, or a crooked As they be passin’. Pouf! Sure, ’tis so fast they’re goin’, Does it matter about the turnin’s?
TENEBRIS
There is a tree, by day, That, at night, Has a shadow, A hand huge and black, With fingers long and black. All through the dark, Against the white man’s house, In the little wind, The black hand plucks and plucks At the bricks. The bricks are the color of blood and very small. Is it a black hand, Or is it a shadow?
WHEN THE GREEN LIES OVER THE EARTH
When the green lies over the earth, my dear, A mantle of witching grace, When the smile and the tear of the young child year Dimple across its face, And then flee, when the wind all day is sweet With the breath of growing things, When the wooing bird lights on restless feet And chirrups and trills and sings To his lady-love In the green above, Then oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year, Yours is the face that I long to have near, Yours is the face, my dear.
But the green is hiding your curls, my dear, Your curls so shining and sweet; And the gold-hearted daisies this many a year Have bloomed and bloomed at your feet, And the little birds just above your head With their voices hushed, my dear, For you have sung and have prayed and have pled This many, many a year.
And the blossoms fall, On the garden wall, And drift like snow on the green below. But the sharp thorn grows On the budding rose, And my heart no more leaps at the sunset glow. For oh! my dear, when the youth’s in the year, Yours is the face that I long to have near, Yours is the face, my dear.
A MONA LISA
1.
I should like to creep Through the long brown grasses That are your lashes; I should like to poise On the very brink Of the leaf-brown pools That are your shadowed eyes; I should like to cleave Without sound, Their glimmering waters, Their unrippled waters, I should like to sink down And down And down ... And deeply drown.
2.
Would I be more than a bubble breaking? Or an ever-widening circle Ceasing at the marge? Would my white bones Be the only white bones Wavering back and forth, back and forth In their depths?
PARADOX
When face to face we stand And eye to eye, How far apart we are----As far, they say, as God can ever be From what, they say, is Hell.
* * * * *
But, when we stand Fronting the other, Mile after mile slipping in between, O, close we are, As close as is the shadow to the body, As breath, to life, ............ As kisses are to love.
* * * * *
YOUR HANDS
I love your hands: They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands; Hair grows on the back near the wrist ... I have seen the nails broken and stained From hard work. And yet, when you touch me, I grow small ....... and quiet ........ ....... And happy .......... If I might only grow small enough To curl up into the hollow of your palm, Your left palm, Curl up, lie close and cling, So that I might know myself always there, ....... Even if you forgot.
I WEEP
--I weep-- Not as the young do noisily, Not as the aged rustily, But quietly. Drop by drop the great tears Splash upon my hands, And save you saw them shine, You would not know I wept.
FOR THE CANDLE LIGHT
The sky was blue, so blue that day And each daisy white, so white, O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey And night again be night.
* * * * *
I _knew_, I _knew_. Well, if night is night, And the grey skies greyly cry, I have in a book for the candle light, A daisy dead and dry.
DUSK
Twin stars through my purpling pane, The shriveling husk Of a yellowing moon on the wane-- And the dusk.
THE PUPPET PLAYER
Sometimes it seems as though some puppet player A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin, Sits just beyond the border of our seeing, Twitching the strings with slow sardonic grin.
A WINTER TWILIGHT
A silence slipping around like death, Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath; One group of trees, lean, naked and cold, Inking their crests ’gainst a sky green-gold; One path that knows where the corn flowers were; Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir; And over it softly leaning down, One star that I loved ere the fields went brown.
ANNE SPENCER