Chapter I: Think I See Him There

I think I see Him there With a stern dream on his face

I see Him there--

Wishing they would hurry The last nail in place.

And I wonder, had I been there, Would I have doubted too

Or would the dream have told me, What this man speaks is true.

DUST

Dust,

Through which Proud blood Once flowed.

Dust,

Where a civilization Flourished.

Dust, The Valley of the Nile, Dust,

You proud ones, proud of the skill With which you play this game--Civilization; Do not forget that it is a very old game. Men used to play it on the banks Of the Tigris and the Euphrates When the world was a wilderness.

There is a circle around China Where once a wall stood. Carthage is a heap of ashes. And Rome knew the pomp and glory You know now.

The Coliseum tells a story The Woolworth Building may repeat.

Dust, Pharaohs and their armies sleep there.

Dust, Shall it stir again?

Will Pharaohs rise and rule And their armies march once more?

_Civilization continually shifts Upon the places of the earth._

NO IMAGES

She does not know Her beauty, She thinks her brown body Has no glory.

If she could dance Naked, Under palm trees And see her image in the river She would know.

But there are no palm trees On the street, And dish water gives back no images.

THE RADICAL

Men never know What they are doing. They always make a muddle Of their affairs, They always tie their affairs Into a knot They cannot untie. Then I come in Uninvited. They do not ask me in; I am the radical, The bomb thrower, I untie the knot That they have made, And they never thank me.

TRUE LOVE

Her love is true I know, Much more true Than angel’s love; For angels love in heaven Where a thousand harps Are playing.

She loves in a tenement Where the only music She hears Is the cry of street car brakes And the toot of automobile horns And the drip of a kitchen spigot All day. Her love is true I know.

EDWARD S. SILVERA

I was born in Florida in the year 1906--moved to Orange, N. J., at an early age--graduated from Orange High School in 1924--am now a Junior at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Here I am a member of the varsity basket-ball and tennis teams and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

I get a great deal of pleasure out of observing life and then writing about it just as I see it.

SOUTH STREET

(Philadelphia, Pa.)

South Street is not beautiful, But the songs of people there Hold the beauty of the jungle, And the fervidness of prayer.

South Street has no mansions, But the hands of South Street men Built pyramids along the Nile That Time has failed to rend.

South Street is America, Breast of the foster mother Where a thousand ill-kept children Vie for suck, with one another.

JUNGLE TASTE

There is a coarseness In the songs of black men Coarse as the songs Of the sea, There is a weird strangeness In the songs of black men Which sounds not strange To me.

There is beauty In the faces of black women, Jungle beauty And mystery Dark hidden beauty In the faces of black women, Which only black men See.

HELENE JOHNSON

Helene Johnson was born twenty years ago in Boston, Mass., where she received her early education and attended Boston University for a short time. A year ago she came to New York to attend the Extension Division of Columbia University. Her work has appeared in _Opportunity_, _Vanity Fair_ and several New York dailies; and has been reprinted in _Palms_, _The Literary Digest_, and Braithwaite’s _Anthology_.

WHAT DO I CARE FOR MORNING

What do I care for morning, For a shivering aspen tree, For sun flowers and sumac Opening greedily? What do I care for morning, For the glare of the rising sun, For a sparrow’s noisy prating, For another day begun? Give me the beauty of evening, The cool consummation of night, And the moon like a love-sick lady, Listless and wan and white. Give me a little valley Huddled beside a hill, Like a monk in a monastery, Safe and contented and still, Give me the white road glistening, A strand of the pale moon’s hair, And the tall hemlocks towering Dark as the moon is fair. Oh what do I care for morning, Naked and newly born-- Night is here, yielding and tender-- What do I care for dawn!

SONNET TO A NEGRO IN HARLEM

You are disdainful and magnificent-- Your perfect body and your pompous gait, Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate, Small wonder that you are incompetent To imitate those whom you so despise-- Your shoulders towering high above the throng, Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song, Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes. Let others toil and sweat for labor’s sake And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold. Why urge ahead your supercilious feet? Scorn will efface each footprint that you make. I love your laughter arrogant and bold. You are too splendid for this city street!

SUMMER MATURES

Summer matures. Brilliant Scorpion Appears. The Pelican’s thick pouch Hangs heavily with perch and slugs. The brilliant-bellied newt flashes Its crimson crest in the white water. In the lush meadow, by the river, The yellow-freckled toad laughs With a toothless gurgle at the white-necked stork Standing asleep on one red reedy leg. And here Pan dreams of slim stalks clean for piping, And of a nightingale gone mad with freedom. Come. I shall weave a bed of reeds And willow limbs and pale nightflowers. I shall strip the roses of their petals, And the white down from the swan’s neck. Come. Night is here. The air is drunk With wild grape and sweet clover. And by the sacred fount of Aganippe Euterpe sings of love. Ah, the woodland creatures, The doves in pairs, the wild sow and her shoats, The stag searching the forest for a mate, Know more of love than you, my callous Phaon. The young moon is a curved white scimitar Pierced thru the swooning night. Sweet Phaon. With Sappho sleep like the stars at dawn. This night was born for love, my Phaon. Come.

POEM

Little brown boy, Slim, dark, big-eyed, Crooning love songs to your banjo Down at the Lafayette-- Gee, boy, I love the way you hold your head, High sort of and a bit to one side, Like a prince, a jazz prince. And I love Your eyes flashing, and your hands, And your patent-leathered feet, And your shoulders jerking the jig-wa. And I love your teeth flashing, And the way your hair shines in the spotlight Like it was the real stuff. Gee, brown boy, I loves you all over. I’m glad I’m a jig. I’m glad I can Understand your dancin’ and your Singin’, and feel all the happiness And joy and don’t care in you. Gee, boy, when you sing, I can close my ears And hear tom toms just as plain. Listen to me, will you, what do I know About tom toms? But I like the word, sort of, Don’t you? It belongs to us. Gee, boy, I love the way you hold your head, And the way you sing, and dance, And everything. Say, I think you’re wonderful. You’re Allright with me, You are.

FULFILLMENT

To climb a hill that hungers for the sky,
To dig my hands wrist deep in pregnant earth,
To watch a young bird, veering, learn to fly,
To give a still, stark poem shining birth.

To hear the rain drool, dimpling, down the drain
And splash with a wet giggle in the street,
To ramble in the twilight after supper,
And to count the pretty faces that you meet.

To ride to town on trolleys, crowded, teeming
With joy and hurry and laughter and push and sweat--
Squeezed next a patent-leathered Negro dreaming
Of a wrinkled river and a minnow net.

To buy a paper from a breathless boy,
And read of kings and queens in foreign lands,
Hyperbole of romance and adventure,
All for a penny the color of my hand.

To lean against a strong tree’s bosom, sentient
And hushed before the silent prayer it breathes,
To melt the still snow with my seething body
And kiss the warm earth tremulous underneath.

Ah, life, to let your stabbing beauty pierce me
And wound me like we did the studded Christ,
To grapple with you, loving you too fiercely,
And to die bleeding--consummate with Life.

THE ROAD

Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze, A leaping clay hill lost among the trees, The bleeding note of rapture streaming thrush Caught in a drowsy hush And stretched out in a single singing line of dusky song. Ah little road, brown as my race is brown, Your trodden beauty like our trodden pride, Dust of the dust, they must not bruise you down. Rise to one brimming golden, spilling cry!

BOTTLED

Upstairs on the third floor Of the 135th Street library In Harlem, I saw a little Bottle of sand, brown sand Just like the kids make pies Out of down at the beach. But the label said: “This Sand was taken from the Sahara desert.” Imagine that! The Sahara desert! Some bozo’s been all the way to Africa to get some sand.

And yesterday on Seventh Avenue I saw a darky dressed fit to kill In yellow gloves and swallow tail coat And swirling a cane. And everyone Was laughing at him. Me too, At first, till I saw his face When he stopped to hear a Organ grinder grind out some jazz. Boy! You should a seen that darky’s face! It just shone. Gee, he was happy! And he began to dance. No Charleston or Black Bottom for him. No sir. He danced just as dignified And slow. No, not slow either. Dignified and _proud_! You couldn’t Call it slow, not with all the Cuttin’ up he did. You would a died to see him.

The crowd kept yellin’ but he didn’t hear, Just kept on dancin’ and twirlin’ that cane And yellin’ out loud every once in a while. I know the crowd thought he was coo-coo. But say, I was where I could see his face, And somehow, I could see him dancin’ in a jungle, A real honest-to-cripe jungle, and he wouldn’t have on them Trick clothes--those yaller shoes and yaller gloves And swallow-tail coat. He wouldn’t have on nothing. And he wouldn’t be carrying no cane. He’d be carrying a spear with a sharp fine point Like the bayonets we had “over there.” And the end of it would be dipped in some kind of Hoo-doo poison. And he’d be dancin’ black and naked and gleaming. And he’d have rings in his ears and on his nose And bracelets and necklaces of elephants’ teeth. Gee, I bet he’d be beautiful then all right. No one would laugh at him then, I bet. Say! That man that took that sand from the Sahara desert And put it in a little bottle on a shelf in the library, That’s what they done to this shine, ain’t it? Bottled him. Trick shoes, trick coat, trick cane, trick everything--all glass-- But inside-- Gee, that poor shine!

MAGALU

Summer comes. The ziczac hovers ’Round the greedy-mouthed crocodile. A vulture bears away a foolish jackal. The flamingo is a dash of pink Against dark green mangroves, Her slender legs rivalling her slim neck. The laughing lake gurgles delicious music in its throat And lulls to sleep the lazy lizard, A nebulous being on a sun-scorched rock. In such a place, In this pulsing, riotous gasp of color, I met Magalu, dark as a tree at night, Eager-lipped, listening to a man with a white collar And a small black book with a cross on it. Oh Magalu, come! Take my hand and I will read you poetry, Chromatic words, Seraphic symphonies, Fill up your throat with laughter and your heart with song. Do not let him lure you from your laughing waters, Lulling lakes, lissome winds. Would you sell the colors of your sunset and the fragrance Of your flowers, and the passionate wonder of your forest For a creed that will not let you dance?

WESLEY CURTWRIGHT

Wesley Curtwright was born in Brunswick, Georgia, on November 30, 1910, but he knows as little about Georgia, perhaps, as about any state in the South. Immediately after his father’s death in 1913, he began a disjointed tour of the land. He has “broken out in spots” of a dozen states both South and North, attending at intervals various schools. He lives in New York at present and has lived there three years. He is attending Harlem Academy, a small private school. He has contributed to _Opportunity_ and _The Messenger_.

THE CLOSE OF DAY

“To meet and then to part,” and that is all, To slowly turn an album’s crusty leaves, To see the faces and the scenes recall, Are things that in a lifetime one achieves.

To wander down a broad-arch gallery, Viewing the scenes from life on either side, Pressed forward with the force of years to see But part of every picture when espied.

The big sun in its blue dome keeps its course, Without a falter moves upon its way. So human life, returning to its source, Is overtaken by the close of day. To dream, and being rudely waked from thought, Return to peaceful dreaming dearly bought.

LULA LOWE WEEDEN

Lula Lowe Weeden was born in Lynchburg, Va., Feb. 4, 1918. Her mother, Mrs. Lula L. Weeden, herself a poet of ability, writes of this youngest of Negro singers: “She is a very close observer. Each flower in my garden she knows. Sometimes she counts each bloom, lingering over those she likes most.

“Each one of my children is very distinct in her make up. Lula is quiet, sweet and unselfish, a decided contrast to the second. This gives each a chance for moral development while trying to adjust her little mind to the other. A few nights ago, Iola the second child slapped Mary the baby. Lula said to Iola, ‘You are not being a good citizen when you strike back even if Mary did slap you.’ Another time, Iola was saying what her teacher had said about her. Lula remarked, ‘It is not what she says you do, it is what you do do.’ Neither statement meant much to Iola.

“I have always mixed my night time stories with ‘Home spun ones.’ All seem to like them best. I asked Lula since Christmas why she liked my stories. She said because they seemed to be true, and criticized fairy stories.

“I have emphasized racial stories for this reason--I was born on a big farm. There were many employed by my father, also tenants. With these we were not allowed to mingle. On the edge of the farm there was a white school. There was a barrier also. Those little girls with golden locks looked like little angels to me. How I wished to be like them with their shrill voices and laughter. They seemed so happy. I just thought of them as things apart. It took much to get this false conception out of me. They were just God sent. This I have tried not to have my children to fight. Now neither one wishes to be white or dislikes them. To them, they all seem like people.

“Lula does most of her writing at night. It is a privilege to remain a few minutes after the other children to finish something. Some nights she will write several. She mumbles them to herself before she begins to write and then keeps saying the words softly. She will finish this and will draw figures and flowers or people. This she does very well for a child until she says, ‘I am going to write something else.’ Interruptions don’t seem to bother her very much as the little ones are always saying something to make her laugh. I usually attempt to quiet them, but some of her best things are written with many around.

“When she shows them to me, she watches for a favorable expression. I always try to be pleased, but somehow she knows from my face that that was not so good, then remarks, ‘I am going to write something else.’

“The amusing part about it all is that she feels as she has begun to write at a mature age, but consoles herself with this statement, ‘Stevenson did not begin to write until he was fifteen and wrote very skillful things.’

“Lula is just a little girl and is very talkative if anyone appeals to her and will talk with her. You can’t explain anything too minutely for her--whether it is her Sunday school lesson or a star, it matters little.”

ME ALONE

As I was going to town, I saw a King and a Queen. Such ringing of bells you never heard, The clerks ran out of the stores; You know how it was, Me alone. I was standing as the others were, “Oh! you little girl,” some one said, “The King wants you,” I became frightened Wondering what he had to say, Me alone. Here’s what he wanted: He wanted me to ride in his coach, I felt myself so much riding in a King’s coach, Me alone.

HAVE YOU SEEN IT

Have you ever seen the moon And stars stick together? Have you ever seen it? Have you ever seen bad? Have you ever seen good And bad stick together? Have you ever seen it?

ROBIN RED BREAST

Little Robin red breast, I hear you sing your song. I would love to have you put it into my little cage, Into my little mouth.

THE STREAM

It was running down to the great Atlantic. I called it back to me, But it slyly looked and said, “I have not time to waste,” And just went arunning running on.

THE LITTLE DANDELION

The dandelion stares In the yellow sunlight. How very still it is! When it is old and grey, I blow its white hair away, And leave it with a bald head.

DANCE

Down at the hall at midnight sometimes, You hear them singing rhymes. These girls are dancing with boys. They are too big for toys.

INDEX

_Absence_, 91

Across the dewy lawn she treads, 195

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, 5

_Advice_, 156

A fancy halts my feet at the way-side well, 15

_Africa_, 123

_After All_, 191

_After the Quarrel_, 5

Ah, how poets sing and die, 50

Ah, I know what happiness is, 107

Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze, 221

Ah, you are cruel, 47

ALEXANDER, LEWIS, 122

ALLEN, GEORGE LEONARD, 203

All that night I walked alone and wept, 169

All the time they were praying, 208

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, 83

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience, 37

_America_, 83

And God stepped out on space, 19

_And What Shall You Say?_, 103

_April Day, An_, 102

A silence slipping around like death, 46

As I was going to town, 227

A tree is more than a shadow, 170

_At the Carnival_, 53

_Auf Wiedersehen_, 189

_Baby Cobina_, 200

_Baker’s Boy, The_, 58

_Band of Gideon, The_, 103

Beat the drums of tragedy for me, 148

BENNETT, GWENDOLYN B., 153

_Black Madonna, The_, 177

_Black Man Talks of Reaping, A_, 165

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stone, 94

_Blight_, 170

Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold, 99

BONTEMPS, ARNA, 162

_Bottled_, 221

Bow down my soul in worship very low, 87

BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY, 31

BROOKS, JONATHAN HENDERSON, 192

Brother, come, 103

Brother to the firefly, 55

BROWN, STERLING A., 129

Brown Baby Cobina, 200

BRUCE, RICHARD, 205

Brushes and paints are all I have, 155

_Cavalier_, 207

Cemeteries are places for departed souls, 159

_Challenge_, 138

Chilled into a serenity, 110

_Close of Day, The_, 225

_Close Your Eyes_, 171

Come, brother, come. Let’s lift it, 97

_Confession_, 190

Consider me a memory, a dream that passed away, 79

COTTER, JOSEPH S., SR., 10

COTTER, JOSEPH S., JR., 99

_Cotton Song_, 97

Could I but retrace, 125

_Creation, The_, 19

_Creed_, 51

CULLEN, COUNTEE, 179

CUNEY, WARING, 207

CURTWRIGHT, WESLEY, 224

_Dance_, 229

_Dark Brother, The_, 124

_Day and Night_, 129

_Day-breakers, The_, 171

Dear, when we sit in that high, placid room, 66

_Death Bed, The_, 208

_Death Song_, 4

_Debt, The_, 9

DELANY, CLARISSA SCOTT, 140

_Del Cascar_, 33

De railroad bridge’s a sad song, 147

_Deserter, The_, 102

_Desolate_, 88

DICKINSON, BLANCHE TAYLOR, 105

Down at the hall at midnight sometimes, 229

_Dream Variation_, 149

_Dreams of the Dreamer, The_, 80

DU BOIS, WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT, 25

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE, 1

_Dunbar_, 50

_Dusk_, 46

_Dust_, 210

Dust, through which proud blood once flowed, 210

_Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes_, 2

_Evening Song_, 94

_Exhortation: Summer, 1919_, 84

_Eyes of My Regret, The_, 37

_Face_, 98

_Fantasy_, 158

_Fantasy in Purple_, 148

Father John’s bread was made of rye, 31

FAUSET, JESSIE, 64

Flame-flower, Day-torch, Mauna Loa, 52

_Flame-Heart_, 85

_For the Candle Light_, 45

For this peculiar tint that paints my house, 92

_Four Epitaphs_, 186

Four great walls have hemmed me in, 110

_Four Walls_, 110

_Fragment_, 70

Frail children of sorrow, dethroned by a hue, 75

_From the Dark Tower_, 183

_From the German of Uhland_, 17

_Fulfillment_, 219

Full moon rising on the waters of my heart, 94

Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving-Tank, 53

_Georgia Dusk_, 95

_Gethsemane_, 169

Give over to high things the fervent thought, 182

_Glory of the Day Was in Her Face, The_, 18

_God Give to Men_, 172

God give the yellow man, 172

_Golgotha Is a Mountain_, 173

Go through the gates with closed eyes, 171

_Grass Fingers_, 38

_Greenness_, 36

GRIMKÉ, ANGELINA WELD, 35

Hair--silver-gray, like streams of stars, 98

_Hatred_, 160

Have you ever seen the moon, 228

_Have You Seen It_, 228

HAYES, DONALD JEFFREY, 188

HAYFORD, GLADYS MAY CASELY, 196

_Heart of a Woman, The_, 81

He came in silvern armour, trimmed with black, 160

Her eyes? Dark pools of deepest shade, 204

Her love is true I know, 213

He scans the world with calm and fearless eyes, 34

He wrote upon his heart, 188

His friends went off and left Him dead, 193

_Homesick Blues_, 147

_Homing_, 172

_Hope_, 75

HORNE, FRANK, 111

_House in Taos, A_, 152

How did it happen that we quarreled? 65

HUGHES, LANGSTON, 144

_Hushed by the Hands of Sleep_, 36

I am so tired and weary, 101

I ask you this, 146

I buried you deeper last night, 113

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats, 184

I do not ask for love, ah! no, 77

I doubt not God is good, 182

I had no thought of violets of late, 72

_I Have a Friend_, 47

_I Have a Rendezvous with Life_, 180

I have gone back in boyish wonderment, 139

I have seen a lovely thing, 170

I have sown beside all waters in my day, 165

I have the greatest fun at night, 58

I kissed a kiss in youth, 31

I know not why or whence he came, 102

I know what the caged bird feels, alas! 8

I laks yo’ kin’ of lovin’, 134

I long not now, 181

I love you for your brownness, 157

I love your hands, 44

I return the bitterness, 124

I said, in drunken pride of youth and you, 138

I sailed in my dreams to the Land of Night, 158

I see in your eyes, 178

I shall come this way again, 189

I shall hate you, 160

I shall make a song like your hair, 155

I should like to creep, 42

_I Sit and Sew_, 73

I that had found the way so smooth, 70

_I Think I See Him There_, 210

I think that man hath, 204

I thought I saw an angel flying low, 166

_I Too_, 145

_I Want to Die While You Love Me_, 78

_I Weep_, 45

I went to court last night, 63

If I have run my course and seek the pearls, 64

If my garden oak spares one bare ledge, 51

I’m folding up my little dreams, 79

_Incident_, 187

_Innocence_, 51

_Inscription_, 188

_Interim_, 142

In wintertime I have such fun, 59

Is Life itself but many ways of thought, 48

It crawled away ’neath my feet, 109

It is fitting that you be here, 112

It was running down to the great Atlantic, 228

I’ve known rivers, 149

_Japanese Hokku_, 127

Jericho is on the inside, 106

JOHNSON, FENTON, 61

JOHNSON, GEORGIA DOUGLAS, 74

JOHNSON, HELENE, 215

JOHNSON, JAMES WELDON, 15

_Joy_, 140

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail, 140

_Jungle Taste_, 214

Lady, my lady, come from out the garden, 136

_Lancelot_, 169

_Last Quarter Moon of the Dying Year, The_, 195

_La Vie C’est La Vie_, 69

Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass, 4

Lemme be wid Casey Jones, 130

_Length of Moon_, 168

_Lethe_, 77

Let me learn now where Beauty is, 48

_Letters Found Near a Suicide_, 114

_Life_, 5

_Life-Long, Poor Browning_, 49

_Lines to a Nasturtium_, 52

_Lines Written at the Grave of Alexander Dumas_, 159

_Litany of Atlanta, A_, 26

Little black boy, 120

Little brown boy, 218

_Little Dandelion, The_, 229

Little Robin red breast, 228

_Little Son_, 76

“Lo, I am black but I am comely too,” 124

Lolotte, who attires my hair, 67

_Long Gone_, 134

Long have I beat with timid hands, 76

_Magalu_, 223

_Marathon Runner, The_, 64

_Mask, The_, 143

MATHEUS, JOHN FREDERICK, 60

_Maumee Ruth_, 133

MCCALL, JAMES EDWARD, 33

MCKAY, CLAUDE, 81

_Me Alone_, 227

Men never know, 212

Might as well bury her, 133

_Mona Lisa, A_, 42

_Morning Light_, 55

_Mother to Son_, 151

_My City_, 25

My heart that was so passionless, 70

_My House_, 92

_My Little Dreams_, 79

My little stone, 114

My spirit is a pestilential city, 88

My window opens out into the trees, 141

_Nativity_, 197

_Negro Speaks of Rivers, The_, 149

_Negro Woman_, 122

_Neighbors_, 47

NELSON, ALICE DUNBAR, 71

_New Negro, The_, 34

NEWSOME, MARY EFFIE LEE, 55

_Nigger_, 120

_Night_, 189

Night like purple flakes of snow, 189

_Noblesse Oblige_, 67

_Nocturne_, 190

_Nocturne at Bethesda_, 166

_No Images_, 212

_Northboun’_, 201

Not as the white nations, 177

Not to dance with her, 209

_November Cotton Flower_, 99

O apple blossoms, 127

O brothers mine, take care! Take care!, 22

_October XXIX, 1795_, 32

O’ de wurl’ ain’t flat, 201

_Odyssey of Big Boy_, 130

Oh, the blue, blue bloom, 56

_Old Black Men_, 77

Once more, listening to the wind and rain, 163

Once riding in old Baltimore, 187

_On Seeing Two Brown Boys in a Catholic Church_, 112

On such a day as this I think, 102

On summer afternoons I sit, 69

On the dusty earth-drum, 100

O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar, 26

Out in the sky the great clouds are massing, 7

Out of the tense awed darkness, 198

O you would clothe me in silken frocks, 87

_Paean_, 195

_Pansy_, 56

_Paradox_, 48

_Poem_, 107

_Poem_, 150

_Poem_, 218

_Portrait_, 204

Pour O pour that parting soul in song, 96

_Prayer_, 146

_Protest_, 181

_Proving_, 77

_Puck Goes to Court_, 63

_Puppet Player, The_, 46

_Quatrains_, 155

_Questing_, 48

_Quilt, The_, 58

_Quoits_, 59

_Radical, The_, 212

_Rain Music_, 100

_Rainy Season Love Song_, 198

_Reapers_, 94

_Recessional_, 79

_Rencontre_, 70

_Requiem_, 61

_Resurrection, The_, 193

_Return_, 139

_Return, The_, 70

_Return, The_, 163

_Revelation_, 107

RICE, ALBERT, 176

_Road, The_, 221

_Robin Red Breast_, 228

_Russian Cathedral_, 87

_Rye Bread_, 31

_Salutamus_, 138

_Sassafras Tea_, 56

_Scintilla_, 31

_Secret_, 155

_Service_, 75

_Serving Girl, The_, 200

_Shadow_, 206

She does not know, 212

She kneeled before me begging, 190

She tripped and fell against a star, 51

She walked along the crowded street, 107

She wears, my beloved, a rose upon her head, 61

_Ships That Pass in the Night_, 7

Silhouette on the face of the moon, 206

SILVERA, EDWARD S., 213

_Sky Pictures_, 57

Slay fowl and beast; pluck clean the vine, 207

_Snow in October_, 71

So detached and cool she is, 143

Softly blow lightly, 190

_Solace_, 141

Some things are very dear to me, 161

Sometimes a right white mountain, 57

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet player, 46

So much have I forgotten in ten years, 85

_Song for a Dark Girl_, 147

_Song of the Son_, 96

_Sonnet_, 72

_Sonnet_, 160

_Sonnet_, 161

_Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem_, 217

_South Street_, 214

So we, who’ve supped the self-same cup, 5

SPENCER, ANNE, 47

_Stream, The_, 228

_Substitution_, 48

_Suicide’s Note_, 151

Summer comes, 223

_Summer Matures_, 217

_Suppliant, The_, 76

_Supplication_, 101

_Surrender_, 38

Sweet timber land, 172

_Sympathy_, 8

_Tanka_, 125

Tell me is there anything lovelier, 36

_Tenebris_, 40

_That Hill_, 109

The baker’s boy delivers loaves, 58

The band of Gideon roam the sky, 103

The bitterness of days like these we know, 138

The breath of life imbued those few dim days, 70

The calabash wherein she served my food, 200

The calm, 151

The dandelion stares, 229

The day is a Negro, 129

The fruit of the orchard is over-ripe, Elaine, 169

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn, 81

The hills are wroth; the stones have scored, 165

The night is beautiful, 150

The night was made for rest and sleep, 142

Then the golden hour, 168

There is a coarseness, 214

There is a tree, by day, 40

There was a man, 11

The sass’fras tea is red and clear, 56

The sky hangs heavy tonight, 122

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue, 95

The sky was blue, so blue that day, 45

The very acme of my woe, 76

They have dreamed as young men dream, 77

This is the debt I pay, 9

This lovely flower fell to seed, 186

Thou art not dead, although the spoiler’s hand, 123

Three students once tarried over the Rhine, 17

Through the pregnant universe, 84

Thunder of the Rain God, 152

Time sitting on the throne of Memory, 32

’Tis queer, it is, the ways to men, 39

_To a Certain Lady, in Her Garden_, 136

_To a Certain Woman_, 178

_To a Dark Girl_, 157

_To an Icicle_, 110

_To a Persistent Phantom_, 113

_To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country_, 165

To climb a hill that hungers for the sky, 219

Today I saw a thing of arresting poignant beauty, 71

To fling my arms wide, 149

_To John Keats, Poet, at Springtime_, 184

_To Lovers of Earth: Fair Warning_, 182

“To meet and then to part,” 225

_To Melody_, 204

TOOMER, JEAN, 93

_Touché_, 66

Touch me, touch me, 38

_Tragedy of Pete, The_, 11

_Transformation_, 124

_Tree Design, A_, 170

_Triviality, A_, 209

_True Love_, 213

Twin stars through my purpling pane, 46

Upstairs on the third floor, 221

_Walls of Jericho, The_, 106

Way down South in Dixie, 147

_Way-side Well, The_, 15

_Ways o’ Men, The_, 39

We are not come to wage a strife, 171

We ask for peace. We, at the bound, 38

WEEDEN, LULA LOWE, 225

Well, son, I’ll tell you, 151

Were you a leper bathed in wounds, 77

We shall not always plant while others reap, 183

_We Wear the Mask_, 8

_What Do I Care for Morning_, 216

_What Need Have I for Memory?_, 80

What! Roses growing in the meadow, 59

When face to face we stand, 43

When first you sang a song to me, 157

_When I am Dead_, 80

When I come down to sleep death’s endless night, 25

_When I Die_, 62

_When the Green Lies Over the Earth_, 41

When we count out our gold at the end of the day, 75

_White Witch, The_, 22

_Wild Goat, The_, 87

_Wild Roses_, 59

WILLIAMS, LUCY ARIEL, 201

_Winter Twilight, A_, 46

Within a native hut, 197

_Words! Words!_, 65

_Yet Do I Marvel_, 182

You are disdainful and magnificent, 217

_Your Hands_, 44

_Your Songs_, 157

Your words dropped into my heart, 91

You were a sophist, 156

* * * * *

Transcriber’s note

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.

Page number references in the index are as published in the original publication and have not been checked for accuracy in this eBook.

Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following changes:

Page vi: “_No’thboun’_ by Lucy Ariel” “_Northboun’_ by Lucy Ariel” Page 47: “its so involved and” “it’s so involved and” Page 66: “TOUCHE” “TOUCHÉ” Page 206: “an all-womens’ hotel” “an all-women’s hotel” Page 230: “Ah, little road” “Ah, little road all”