Chapter 5

Long nights, long nights and the whisperings of new ones, Flame the line of the pathway down to the sea With the halo of new dreams and the hallow of old ones, And they bring magic light to my love reverie And a lover's regret.

Tender sorrow for loss of a soft murmured word, Tender measure of doubt in a faint, aching heart, Tender listening for wind-songs in the tree heights heard When you and I were of the dusks a part, Are with me yet.

I pray for faith to the noble spirit of Space, I sound the cosmic depths for the measure of glory Which will bring to this earth the imperishable race Of whom Beauty dreamed in the soul-toned story The Prophets told.

Silence and love and deep wonder of stars Dust-silver the heavens from west to east, From south to north, and in a maze of bars Invisible I wander far from the feast As night grows old.

Half blind is my vision I know to the truth, My ears are half deaf to the voice of the tear That touches the silences as Autumn's ruth Steals thru the dusks of each returning year A goodly friend.

The Autumn, then Winter and wintertime's grief! But the weight of the snow is the glistening gift Which loving brings to the rose and its leaf, For the days of the roses glow in the drift And never end.

* * * * *

The moon has come. Wan and pallid is she. The spell of half memories, the touch of half tears, And the wounds of worn passions she brings to me With all the tremor of the far-off years And their mad wrong.

Yet the garden is very quiet to-night, The dusk has long gone with the Evening Star, And out on the bay the moon's wan light Lays a silver pathway beyond the bar, Dear heart, pale and long.

IT WAS NOT FATE

It was not fate which overtook me, Rather a wayward, wilful wind That blew hot for awhile And then, as the even shadows came, blew cold. What pity it is that a man grown old in life's dreaming Should stop, e'en for a moment, to look into a woman's eyes. And I forgot! Forgot that one's heart must be steeled against the east wind. Life and death alike come out of the East: Life as tender as young grass, Death as dreadful as the sight of clotted blood. I shall go back into the darkness, Not to dream but to seek the light again. I shall go by paths, mayhap, On roads that wind around the foothills Where the plains are bare and wild And the passers-by come few and far between. I want the night to be long, the moon blind, The hills thick with moving memories, And my heart beating a breathless requiem For all the dead days I have lived. When the Dawn comes--Dawn, deathless, dreaming-- I shall will that my soul must be cleansed of hate, I shall pray for strength to hold children close to my heart, I shall desire to build houses where the poor will know shelter, comfort, beauty. And then may I look into a woman's eyes And find holiness, love and the peace which passeth understanding.

W.E. Burghardt Du Bois

A LITANY OF ATLANTA

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 mill 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!_

George Marion McClellan

DOGWOOD BLOSSOMS

To dreamy languors and the violet mist Of early Spring, the deep sequestered vale Gives first her paling-blue Miamimist, Where blithely pours the cuckoo's annual tale Of Summer promises and tender green, Of a new life and beauty yet unseen. The forest trees have yet a sighing mouth, Where dying winds of March their branches swing, While upward from the dreamy, sunny South, A hand invisible leads on the Spring.

His rounds from bloom to bloom the bee begins With flying song, and cowslip wine he sups, Where to the warm and passing southern winds, Azaleas gently swing their yellow cups. Soon everywhere, with glory through and through, The fields will spread with every brilliant hue. But high o'er all the early floral train, Where softness all the arching sky resumes, The dogwood dancing to the winds' refrain, In stainless glory spreads its snowy blooms.

A BUTTERFLY IN CHURCH

What dost thou here, thou shining, sinless thing, With many colored hues and shapely wing? Why quit the open field and summer air To flutter here? Thou hast no need of prayer.

'Tis meet that we, who this great structure built, Should come to be redeemed and washed from guilt, For we this gilded edifice within Are come, with erring hearts and stains of sin.

But thou art free from guilt as God on high; Go, seek the blooming waste and open sky, And leave us here our secret woes to bear, Confessionals and agonies of prayer.

THE HILLS OF SEWANEE

Sewanee Hills of dear delight, Prompting my dreams that used to be, I know you are waiting me still to-night By the Unika Range of Tennessee.

The blinking stars in endless space, The broad moonlight and silvery gleams, To-night caress your wind-swept face, And fold you in a thousand dreams.

Your far outlines, less seen than felt, Which wind with hill propensities, In moonlight dreams I see you melt Away in vague immensities.

And, far away, I still can feel Your mystery that ever speaks Of vanished things, as shadows steal Across your breast and rugged peaks.

O, dear blue hills, that lie apart, And wait so patiently down there, Your peace takes hold upon my heart And makes its burden less to bear.

THE FEET OF JUDAS

Christ washed the feet of Judas! The dark and evil passions of his soul, His secret plot, and sordidness complete, His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole, And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.

Christ washed the feet of Judas! Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him, His bargain with the priest, and more than this, In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim, Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.

Christ washed the feet of Judas! And so ineffable his love 'twas meet, That pity fill his great forgiving heart, And tenderly to wash the traitor's feet, Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.

Christ washed the feet of Judas! And thus a girded servant, self-abased, Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven Was ever too great to wholly be effaced, And though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.

And so if we have ever felt the wrong Of Trampled rights, of caste, it matters not, What e'er the soul has felt or suffered long, Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot: Christ washed the feet of Judas.

William Stanley Braithwaite

SANDY STAR AND WILLIE GEE

Sandy Star and Willie Gee, Count 'em two, you make 'em three: Pluck the man and boy apart And you'll see into my heart.

SANDY STAR

I

_Sculptured Worship_

The zones of warmth around his heart, No alien airs had crossed; But he awoke one morn to feel The magic numbness of autumnal frost.

His thoughts were a loose skein of threads, And tangled emotions, vague and dim; And sacrificing what he loved He lost the dearest part of him.

In sculptured worship now he lives, His one desire a prisoned ache; If he can never melt again His very heart will break.

II

_Laughing It Out_

He had a whim and laughed it out Upon the exit of a chance; He floundered in a sea of doubt-- If life was real--or just romance.

Sometimes upon his brow would come A little pucker of defiance; He totalled in a word the sum Of all man made of facts and science.

And then a hearty laugh would break, A reassuring shrug of shoulder; And we would from his fancy take A faith in death which made life bolder.

III

_Exit_

No, his exit by the gate Will not leave the wind ajar; He will go when it is late With a misty star.

One will call, he cannot see; One will call, he will not hear; He will take no company Nor a hope or fear.

We shall smile who loved him so-- They who gave him hate will weep; But for us the winds will blow Pulsing through his sleep.

IV

_The Way_

He could not tell the way he came, Because his chart was lost: Yet all his way was paved with flame From the bourne he crossed.

He did not know the way to go, Because he had no map: He followed where the winds blow,-- And the April sap.

He never knew upon his brow The secret that he bore,-- And laughs away the mystery now The dark's at his door.

V

_Onus Probandi_

No more from out the sunset, No more across the foam, No more across the windy hills Will Sandy Star come home.

He went away to search it With a curse upon his tongue: And in his hand the staff of life, Made music as it swung.

I wonder if he found it, And knows the mystery now-- Our Sandy Star who went away, With the secret on his brow.

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.

TURN ME TO MY YELLOW LEAVES

Turn me to my yellow leaves, I am better satisfied; There is something in me grieves-- That was never born, and died. Let me be a scarlet flame On a windy autumn morn, I who never had a name, Nor from breathing image born. From the margin let me fall Where the farthest stars sink down, And the void consumes me,--all In nothingness to drown. Let me dream my dream entire, Withered as an autumn leaf-- Let me have my vain desire, Vain--as it is brief.

IRONIC: LL.D.

There are no hollows any more Between the mountains; the prairie floor Is like a curtain with the drape Of the winds' invisible shape; And nowhere seen and nowhere heard The sea's quiet as a sleeping bird.

Now we're traveling, what holds back Arrival, in the very track Where the urge put forth; so we stay And move a thousand miles a day. Time's a Fancy ringing bells Whose meaning, charlatan history, tells!

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.

SIC VITA

Heart free, hand free, Blue above, brown under, All the world to me Is a place of wonder. Sun shine, moon shine, Stars, and winds a-blowing, All into this heart of mine Flowing, flowing, flowing!

Mind free, step free, Days to follow after, Joys of life sold to me For the price of laughter. Girl's love, man's love, Love of work and duty, Just a will of God's to prove Beauty, beauty, beauty!

RHAPSODY

I am glad daylong for the gift of song, For time and change and sorrow; For the sunset wings and the world-end things Which hang on the edge of to-morrow. I am glad for my heart whose gates apart Are the entrance-place of wonders, Where dreams come in from the rush and din Like sheep from the rains and thunders.

George Reginald Margetson

STANZAS FROM THE FLEDGLING BARD AND THE POETRY SOCIETY

_Part I_

I'm out to find the new, the modern school, Where Science trains the fledgling bard to fly, Where critics teach the ignorant, the fool, To write the stuff the editors would buy; It matters not e'en tho it be a lie,-- Just so it aims to smash tradition's crown And build up one instead decked with a new renown.

A thought is haunting me by night and day, And in some safe archive I seek to lay it; I have some startling thing I wish to say, And they can put me wise just how to say it. Without their aid, I, like the ass, must bray it, Without due knowledge of its mood and tense, And so 'tis sure to fail the bard to recompense.

Will some kind one direct me to that college Where every budding genius now is headed, The only source to gain poetic knowledge, Where all the sacred truths lay deep imbedded, Where nothing but the genuine goods are shredded,-- The factory where they shape new feet and meters That make poetic symbols sound like carpet beaters.

* * * * *

I hope I'll be an eligible student, E'en tho I am no poet in a sense, But just a hot-head youth with ways imprudent,-- A rustic ranting rhymer like by chance Who thinks that he can make the muses dance By beating on some poet's borrowed lyre, To win some fool's applause and please his own desire.

Perhaps they'll never know or e'en suspect That I am not a true, a genuine poet; If in the poet's colors I am decked They may not ask me e'er to prove or show it. I'll play the wise old cock, nor try to crow it, But be content to gaze with open mind; I'll never show the lead but eye things from behind.

* * * * *

_Part II_

I have a problem all alone to solve, A problem how to find the poetry club, It makes my sky piece like a top revolve, For fear that they might mark me for a snob. They'll call me poetry monger and then dub Me rustic rhymer, anything they choose, Ay, anything at all, but heaven's immortal muse.

Great Byron, when he published his Childe book, In which he sang of all his lovely dears, Called forth hot condemnation and cold look, From lesser mortals who were not his peers. They chided him for telling his affairs, Because they could not tell their own so well, They plagued the poet lord and made his life a hell.

They called him lewd, vile drunkard, vicious wight, And all because he dared to tell the truth, Because he was no cursed hermaphrodite,-- A full fledged genius with the fire of youth. They hounded him, they hammered him forsooth; Because he blended human with divine, They branded him "the bard of women and of wine."

Of course I soak the booze once in a while, But I don't wake the town to sing and shout it; I love the girls, they win me with a smile, But no one knows, for I won't write about it. And so the fools may never think to doubt it, When I declare I am a moral man, As gifted, yet as good as God did ever plan.

* * * * *

Every man has got a hobby, Every poet has some fault, Every sweet contains its bitter, Every fresh thing has its salt.

Every mountain has a valley, Every valley has a hill, Every ravine is a river, Every river is a rill.

Every fool has got some wisdom, Every wise man is a fool, Every scholar is a block-head, Every dunce has been to school.

Every bad man is a good man, Every fat man is not stout, Every good man is a bad man But 'tis hard to find him out.

Every strong man is a weak man, You may doubt it as you please, Every well man is a sick man, Every doctor has disease.

James Weldon Johnson

O BLACK AND UNKNOWN BARDS

O black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How, in your darkness, did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre? Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes? Who first from out the still watch, lone and long, Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?

Heart of what slave poured out such melody As "Steal away to Jesus"? On its strains His spirit must have nightly floated free, Though still about his hands he felt his chains. Who heard great "Jordan roll"? Whose starward eye Saw chariot "swing low"? And who was he That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh, "Nobody knows de trouble I see"?

What merely living clod, what captive thing, Could up toward God through all its darkness grope, And find within its deadened heart to sing These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope? How did it catch that subtle undertone, That note in music heard not with the ears? How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown, Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.

Not that great German master in his dream Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars At the creation, ever heard a theme Nobler than "Go down, Moses." Mark its bars How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung Going to valorous deeds; such tones there were That helped make history when Time was young.

There is a wide, wide wonder in it all, That from degraded rest and servile toil The fiery spirit of the seer should call These simple children of the sun and soil. O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed, You--you alone, of all the long, long line Of those who've sung untaught, unknown, unnamed, Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.

You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings; No chant of bloody war, no exulting pean Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings You touched in chord with music empyrean. You sang far better than you knew; the songs That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed Still live,--but more than this to you belongs: You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.

SENCE YOU WENT AWAY

Seems lak to me de stars don't shine so bright, Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light, Seems lak to me der's nothin' goin' right, Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me de sky ain't half so blue, Seems lak to me dat ev'ything wants you, Seems lak to me I don't know what to do, Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me dat ev'ything is wrong, Seems lak to me de day's jes twice es long, Seems lak to me de bird's forgot his song, Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me I jes can't he'p but sigh, Seems lak to me ma th'oat keeps gittin' dry, Seems lak to me a tear stays in ma eye, Sence you went away.

THE CREATION

(_A Negro Sermon_)

And God stepped out on space, And He looked around and said, _"I'm lonely-- I'll make me a world."_

And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled, And the light broke, And the darkness rolled up on one side, And the light stood shining on the other, And God said, _"That's good!"_

Then God reached out and took the light in His hands, And God rolled the light around in His hands Until He made the sun; And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens. And the light that was left from making the sun God gathered it up in a shining ball And flung it against the darkness, Spangling the night with the moon and stars. Then down between The darkness and the light He hurled the world; And God said, _"That's good!"_

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.