Part 2

For one brief golden moment rare like wine, The gracious city swept across the line; Oblivious of the color of my skin, Forgetting that I was an alien guest, She bent to me, my hostile heart to win, Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast; The great, proud city, seized with a strange love, Bowed down for one flame hour my pride to prove.

NORTH AND SOUTH

O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams! There time and life move lazily along. There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song, Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day, Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies, And swarthy children in the fields at play, Look upward laughing at the smiling skies. A breath of idleness is in the air That casts a subtle spell upon all things, And love and mating-time are everywhere, And wonder to life’s commonplaces clings. The fluttering humming-bird darts through the trees And dips his long beak in the big bell-flowers, The leisured buzzard floats upon the breeze, Riding a crescent cloud for endless hours, The sea beats softly on the emerald strands-- O sweet for quiet dreams are tropic lands!

WILD MAY

Aleta mentions in her tender letters, Among a chain of quaint and touching things, That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters, And given to strange deeds and mutterings. No longer without trace or thought of fear, Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan; But have become the victim of grim care, With three brown beauties to support alone. But none the less will you be in my mind, Wild May that cantered by the risky ways, With showy head-cloth flirting in the wind, From market in the glad December days; Wild May of whom even other girls could rave Before sex tamed your spirit, made you slave.

THE PLATEAU

It was the silver, heart-enveloping view Of the mysterious sea-line far away, Seen only on a gleaming gold-white day, That made it dear and beautiful to you.

And Laura loved it for the little hill, Where the quartz sparkled fire, barren and dun, Whence in the shadow of the dying sun, She contemplated Hallow’s wooden mill.

While Danny liked the sheltering high grass, In which he lay upon a clear dry night, To hear and see, screened skilfully from sight, The happy lovers of the valley pass.

But oh! I loved it for the big round moon That swung out of the clouds and swooned aloft, Burning with passion, gloriously soft, Lighting the purple flowers of fragrant June.

AFTER THE WINTER

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves And against the morning’s white The shivering birds beneath the eaves Have sheltered for the night, We’ll turn our faces southward, love, Toward the summer isle Where bamboos spire to shafted grove And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill Where towers the cotton tree, And leaps the laughing crystal rill, And works the droning bee. And we will build a cottage there Beside an open glade, With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near, And ferns that never fade.

THE WILD GOAT

O you would clothe me in silken frocks And house me from the cold, And bind with bright bands my glossy locks, And buy me chains of gold;

And give me--meekly to do my will-- The hapless sons of men:-- But the wild goat bounding on the barren hill Droops in the grassy pen.

HARLEM SHADOWS

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire’s call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street!

Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest; Through the lone night until the last snow-flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast, The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.

Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street.

THE WHITE CITY

I will not toy with it nor bend an inch. Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part. My being would be a skeleton, a shell, If this dark Passion that fills my every mood, And makes my heaven in the white world’s hell, Did not forever feed me vital blood. I see the mighty city through a mist-- The strident trains that speed the goaded mass, The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed, The fortressed port through which the great ships pass, The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate, Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.

THE SPANISH NEEDLE

Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night?

Shadowed by the spreading mango, Nodding o’er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, Do you of the exile dream?

Do you see me by the brook’s side Catching crayfish ’neath the stone, As you did the day you whispered: Leave the harmless dears alone?

Do you see me in the meadow Coming from the woodland spring With a bamboo on my shoulder And a pail slung from a string?

Do you see me all expectant Lying in an orange grove, While the swee-swees sing above me, Waiting for my elf-eyed love?

Lovely dainty Spanish needle, Source to me of sweet delight, In your far-off sunny southland Do you dream of me to-night?

MY MOTHER

I

Reg wished me to go with him to the field, I paused because I did not want to go; But in her quiet way she made me yield Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way, She pointed to the nail where hung my cap. Her eyes said: I shall last another day. But scarcely had we reached the distant place, When o’er the hills we heard a faint bell ringing; A boy came running up with frightened face; We knew the fatal news that he was bringing. I heard him listlessly, without a moan, Although the only one I loved was gone.

II

The dawn departs, the morning is begun, The trades come whispering from off the seas, The fields of corn are golden in the sun, The dark-brown tassels fluttering in the breeze; The bell is sounding and the children pass, Frog-leaping, skipping, shouting, laughing shrill, Down the red road, over the pasture-grass, Up to the school-house crumbling on the hill. The older folk are at their peaceful toil, Some pulling up the weeds, some plucking corn, And others breaking up the sun-baked soil. Float, faintly-scented breeze, at early morn Over the earth where mortals sow and reap-- Beneath its breast my mother lies asleep.

IN BONDAGE

I would be wandering in distant fields Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely, And the old earth is kind, and ever yields Her goodly gifts to all her children free; Where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding, And boys and girls have time and space for play Before they come to years of understanding-- Somewhere I would be singing, far away. For life is greater than the thousand wars Men wage for it in their insatiate lust, And will remain like the eternal stars, When all that shines to-day is drift and dust But I am bound with you in your mean graves, O black men, simple slaves of ruthless slaves.

DECEMBER, 1919

Last night I heard your voice, mother, The words you sang to me When I, a little barefoot boy, Knelt down against your knee.

And tears gushed from my heart, mother, And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat The drops refused to fall.

’Tis ten years since you died, mother, Just ten dark years of pain, And oh, I only wish that I Could weep just once again.

HERITAGE

Now the dead past seems vividly alive, And in this shining moment I can trace, Down through the vista of the vanished years, Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face.

And suddenly some secret spring’s released, And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print, What seemed before a thing forever sealed.

I know the magic word, the graceful thought, The song that fills me in my lucid hours, The spirit’s wine that thrills my body through, And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours.

I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise, I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true; But I can feel and I can write the word; The best of me is but the least of you.

WHEN I HAVE PASSED AWAY

When I have passed away and am forgotten, And no one living can recall my face, When under alien sod my bones lie rotten With not a tree or stone to mark the place;

Perchance a pensive youth, with passion burning, For olden verse that smacks of love and wine, The musty pages of old volumes turning, May light upon a little song of mine,

And he may softly hum the tune and wonder Who wrote the verses in the long ago; Or he may sit him down awhile to ponder Upon the simple words that touch him so.

ENSLAVED

Oh when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place In the great life line of the Christian West; And in the Black Land disinherited, Robbed in the ancient country of its birth, My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead, For this my race that has no home on earth. Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry To the avenging angel to consume The white man’s world of wonders utterly: Let it be swallowed up in earth’s vast womb, Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke To liberate my people from its yoke!

I SHALL RETURN

I shall return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. I shall return to loiter by the streams That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, And realize once more my thousand dreams Of waters rushing down the mountain passes. I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife Of village dances, dear delicious tunes That stir the hidden depths of native life, Stray melodies of dim remembered runes. I shall return, I shall return again, To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.

MORNING JOY

At night the wide and level stretch of wold, Which at high noon had basked in quiet gold, Far as the eye could see was ghostly white; Dark was the night save for the snow’s weird light.

I drew the shades far down, crept into bed; Hearing the cold wind moaning overhead Through the sad pines, my soul, catching its pain, Went sorrowing with it across the plain.

At dawn, behold! the pall of night was gone, Save where a few shrubs melancholy, lone, Detained a fragile shadow. Golden-lipped The laughing grasses heaven’s sweet wine sipped.

The sun rose smiling o’er the river’s breast, And my soul, by his happy spirit blest, Soared like a bird to greet him in the sky, And drew out of his heart Eternity.

AFRICA

The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light, The sciences were sucklings at thy breast; When all the world was young in pregnant night Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best. Thou ancient treasure-land, thou modern prize, New peoples marvel at thy pyramids! The years roll on, thy sphinx of riddle eyes Watches the mad world with immobile lids. The Hebrews humbled them at Pharaoh’s name. Cradle of Power! Yet all things were in vain! Honor and Glory, Arrogance and Fame! They went. The darkness swallowed thee again. Thou art the harlot, now thy time is done, Of all the mighty nations of the sun.

ON A PRIMITIVE CANOE

Here, passing lonely down this quiet lane, Before a mud-splashed window long I pause To gaze and gaze, while through my active brain Still thoughts are stirred to wakefulness; because Long, long ago in a dim unknown land, A massive forest-tree, ax-felled, adze-hewn, Was deftly done by cunning mortal hand Into a symbol of the tender moon. Why does it thrill more than the handsome boat That bore me o’er the wild Atlantic ways, And fill me with rare sense of things remote From this harsh life of fretful nights and days? I cannot answer but, whate’er it be, An old wine has intoxicated me.

WINTER IN THE COUNTRY

Sweet life! how lovely to be here And feel the soft sea-laden breeze Strike my flushed face, the spruce’s fair Free limbs to see, the lesser trees’

Bare hands to touch, the sparrow’s cheep To heed, and watch his nimble flight Above the short brown grass asleep. Love glorious in his friendly might,

Music that every heart could bless, And thoughts of life serene, divine, Beyond my power to express, Crowd round this lifted heart of mine!

But oh! to leave this paradise For the city’s dirty basement room, Where, beauty hidden from the eyes, A table, bed, bureau and broom

In corner set, two crippled chairs All covered up with dust and grim With hideousness and scars of years, And gaslight burning weird and dim,

Will welcome me.... And yet, and yet This very wind, the winter birds, The glory of the soft sunset, Come there to me in words.

TO WINTER

Stay, season of calm love and soulful snows! There is a subtle sweetness in the sun, The ripples on the stream’s breast gaily run, The wind more boisterously by me blows, And each succeeding day now longer grows. The birds a gladder music have begun, The squirrel, full of mischief and of fun, From maples’ topmost branch the brown twig throws. I read these pregnant signs, know what they mean: I know that thou art making ready to go. Oh stay! I fled a land where fields are green Always, and palms wave gently to and fro, And winds are balmy, blue brooks ever sheen, To ease my heart of its impassioned woe.

SPRING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

(_To J. L. J. F. E._)

Too green the springing April grass, Too blue the silver-speckled sky, For me to linger here, alas, While happy winds go laughing by, Wasting the golden hours indoors, Washing windows and scrubbing floors.

Too wonderful the April night, Too faintly sweet the first May flowers, The stars too gloriously bright, For me to spend the evening hours, When fields are fresh and streams are leaping, Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

ON THE ROAD

Roar of the rushing train fearfully rocking, Impatient people jammed in line for food, The rasping noise of cars together knocking, And worried waiters, some in ugly mood, Crowding into the choking pantry hole To call out dishes for each angry glutton Exasperated grown beyond control, From waiting for his soup or fish or mutton. At last the station’s reached, the engine stops; For bags and wraps the red-caps circle round; From off the step the passenger lightly hops, And seeks his cab or tram-car homeward bound; The waiters pass out weary, listless, glum, To spend their tips on harlots, cards and rum.

THE HARLEM DANCER

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes Blown by black players upon a picnic day. She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, The light gauze hanging loose about her form; To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise, The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze; But looking at her falsely-smiling face, I knew her self was not in that strange place.

DAWN IN NEW YORK

The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills. Almost the mighty city is asleep, No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet. But here and there a few cars groaning creep Along, above, and underneath the street, Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by, The women and the men of garish nights, Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry, Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights. The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York. And I go darkly-rebel to my work.

THE TIRED WORKER

O whisper, O my soul! The afternoon Is waning into evening, whisper soft! Peace, O my rebel heart! for soon the moon From out its misty veil will swing aloft! Be patient, weary body, soon the night Will wrap thee gently in her sable sheet, And with a leaden sigh thou wilt invite To rest thy tired hands and aching feet. The wretched day was theirs, the night is mine; Come tender sleep, and fold me to thy breast. But what steals out the gray clouds red like wine? O dawn! O dreaded dawn! O let me rest Weary my veins, my brain, my life! Have pity! No! Once again the harsh, the ugly city.

OUTCAST

For the dim regions whence my fathers came My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs. Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame; My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs. I would go back to darkness and to peace, But the great western world holds me in fee, And I may never hope for full release While to its alien gods I bend my knee. Something in me is lost, forever lost, Some vital thing has gone out of my heart, And I must walk the way of life a ghost Among the sons of earth, a thing apart; For I was born, far from my native clime, Under the white man’s menace, out of time.

I KNOW MY SOUL

I plucked my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body quivering in space, A spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored it to determine why This awful key to my infinity Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace. And if the sign may not be fully read, If I can comprehend but not control, I need not gloom my days with futile dread, Because I see a part and not the whole. Contemplating the strange, I’m comforted By this narcotic thought: I know my soul.

BIRDS OF PREY

Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day, As they go lumbering across the sky, Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high, Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray. They scare the singing birds of earth away As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly, Watching the toilers with malignant eye, From their exclusive haven--birds of prey. They swoop down for the spoil in certain might, And fasten in our bleeding flesh their claws. They beat us to surrender weak with fright, And tugging and tearing without let or pause, They flap their hideous wings in grim delight, And stuff our gory hearts into their maws.

THE CASTAWAYS

The vivid grass with visible delight Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth, The butterflies, and sparrows in brief flight Chirping and dancing for the season’s birth, The dandelions and rare daffodils That touch the deep-stirred heart with hands of gold, The thrushes sending forth their joyous trills,-- Not these, not these did I at first behold! But seated on the benches daubed with green, The castaways of life, a few asleep, Some withered women desolate and mean, And over all, life’s shadows dark and deep. Moaning I turned away, for misery I have the strength to bear but not to see.

EXHORTATION: SUMMER, 1919

Through the pregnant universe rumbles life’s terrific thunder, And Earth’s bowels quake with terror; strange and terrible storms break, Lightning-torches flame the heavens, kindling souls of men, thereunder: Africa! long ages sleeping, O my motherland, awake!

In the East the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking, And its golden glory fills the western skies. O my brothers and my sisters, wake! arise! For the new birth rends the old earth and the very dead are waking, Ghosts are turned flesh, throwing off the grave’s disguise, And the foolish, even children, are made wise; For the big earth groans in travail for the strong, new world in making-- O my brothers, dreaming for dim centuries, Wake from sleeping; to the East turn, turn your eyes!

Oh the night is sweet for sleeping, but the shining day’s for working; Sons of the seductive night, for your children’s children’s sake, From the deep primeval forests where the crouching leopard’s lurking, Lift your heavy-lidded eyes, Ethiopia! awake!

In the East the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking, And its golden glory fills the western skies. O my brothers and my sisters, wake! arise! For the new birth rends the old earth and the very dead are waking, Ghosts are turned flesh, throwing off the grave’s disguise, And the foolish, even children, are made wise; For the big earth groans in travail for the strong, new world in making-- O my brothers, dreaming for long centuries, Wake from sleeping; to the East turn, turn your eyes!

THE LYNCHING

His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven. His father, by the cruelest way of pain, Had bidden him to his bosom once again; The awful sin remained still unforgiven. All night a bright and solitary star (Perchance the one that ever guided him, Yet gave him up at last to Fate’s wild whim) Hung pitifully o’er the swinging char. Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view The ghastly body swaying in the sun The women thronged to look, but never a one Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue; And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.

BAPTISM

Into the furnace let me go alone; Stay you without in terror of the heat. I will go naked in--for thus ’tis sweet-- Into the weird depths of the hottest zone. I will not quiver in the frailest bone, You will not note a flicker of defeat; My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet, My mouth give utterance to any moan. The yawning oven spits forth fiery spears; Red aspish tongues shout wordlessly my name. Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears, Transforming me into a shape of flame. I will come out, back to your world of tears, A stronger soul within a finer frame.

IF WE MUST DIE