Chapter I: Want to Die While (1)

YOU LOVE ME

I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.

I want to die while you love me
And bear to that still bed
Your kisses turbulent, unspent
To warm me when I’m dead.

I want to die while you love me;
Oh, who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give?

I want to die while you love me,
And never, never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim, or cease to be!

RECESSIONAL

Consider me a memory, a dream that passed away; Or yet a flower that has blown and shattered in a day; For passion sleeps alas and keeps no vigil with the years And wakens to no conjuring of orisons or tears.

Consider me a melody that served its simple turn, Or but the residue of fire that settles in the urn, For love defies pure reasoning and undeterred flows Within, without, the vassal heart--its reasoning who knows?

MY LITTLE DREAMS

I’m folding up my little dreams
Within my heart tonight,
And praying I may soon forget
The torture of their sight.

For time’s deft fingers scroll my brow
With fell relentless art--
I’m folding up my little dreams
Tonight, within my heart.

WHAT NEED HAVE I FOR MEMORY?

What need have I for memory,
When not a single flower
Has bloomed within life’s desert
For me, one little hour?

What need have I for memory
Whose burning eyes have met
The corse of unborn happiness
Winding the trail regret?

WHEN I AM DEAD

When I am dead, withhold, I pray, your blooming legacy; Beneath the willows did I bide, and they should cover me; I longed for light and fragrance, and I sought them far and near, O, it would grieve me utterly, to find them on my bier!

THE DREAMS OF THE DREAMER

The dreams of the dreamer
Are life-drops that pass
The break in the heart
To the soul’s hour-glass.

The songs of the singer
Are tones that repeat
The cry of the heart
Till it ceases to beat.

THE HEART OF A WOMAN

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn, As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on, Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night, And enters some alien cage in its plight, And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.

CLAUDE McKAY

“I was born in a very little village high up in the hills of the parish of Clarendon in the island of Jamaica. The village was so small it hadn’t a name like the larger surrounding villages. But our place was called Sunny Ville. I was the youngest of eleven.

My father was a peasant proprietor who owned his land and cultivated large tracts of coffee, cocoa, bananas and sugar-cane. When I was of school age I was sent to my brother who was a schoolmaster in a small town in the North-Western part of the island. He educated me. He was a free-thinker and I became one, too, so soon as I could think about life and religion. I was never a child of any church. My brother had a nice library with books of all sorts and I read such free-thought writers as Haeckel, Huxley, Matthew Arnold, side by side with Shakespeare and the great English novelists and poets (excepting Browning) before I was fourteen. At that time Shakespeare to me was only a wonderful story-teller. When I was seventeen I won a Jamaica Government Trade Scholarship and was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker and wheelwright. I hated trade and quit. When I was nineteen I joined the Jamaica Constabulary and left it after ten months. An English gentleman who was collecting Jamaica folklore became interested in my dialect verses and helped me to publish my first book: _Songs of Jamaica_, in 1911. I was twenty years old then. The next year I went to the United States. First to an educational institution for Negroes in the South. I did not like it, and left there after three months for a college in a Western state. There I stayed two years. Came to New York. Abandoned all thought of returning to the West Indies. Lost a few thousand dollars (a legacy) in high living and bad business. Went to work at various jobs, porter, houseman, longshoreman, bar-man, railroad club and hotel waiter. Kept on writing. The _Seven Arts Magazine_ took two of my poems in 1917. In 1918 Frank Harris published some poems in _Pearson’s_. In 1919 _The Liberator_ published some things. The same year I went to Holland, Belgium and England. Lived in London over a year. Published _Spring in New Hampshire_. Returned to America in 1921. Got a job with Max Eastman on the _Liberator_. Kept it till Max Eastman left for Europe. Went to Russia in 1922. _Harlem Shadows_ published 1922 by Harcourt, Brace & Co. Stayed six months in Moscow and Petrograd. Berlin in 1923. Paris at the end of 1923, where I was very ill for months. Been in France ever since trying to exist and write.”

AMERICA[11]

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate. Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

_Claude McKay_

EXHORTATION: SUMMER, 1919[12]

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!

FLAME-HEART[13]

So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years! I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice, And what month brings the shy forget-me-not. I have forgot the special, startling season Of the pimento’s flowering and fruiting; What time of year the ground doves brown the fields And fill the noonday with their curious fluting. I have forgotten much, but still remember The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.

I still recall the honey-fever grass, But cannot recollect the high days when We rooted them out of the ping-wing path To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen. I often try to think in what sweet month The languid painted ladies used to dapple The yellow by-road mazing from the main, Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple. I have forgotten--strange--but quite remember The poinsettia’s red, blood-red in warm December.

What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year We cheated school to have our fling at tops? What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy Feasting upon blackberries in the copse? Oh, some I know! I have embalmed the days, Even the sacred moments when we played, All innocent of passion, uncorrupt, At noon and evening in the flame-heart’s shade. We were so happy, happy, I remember, Beneath the poinsettia’s red in warm December.

THE WILD GOAT[14]

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.

RUSSIAN CATHEDRAL

Bow down my soul in worship very low And in the holy silences be lost. Bow down before the marble man of woe, Bow down before the singing angel host. What jewelled glory fills my spirit’s eye! What golden grandeur moves the depths of me! The soaring arches lift me up on high Taking my breath with their rare symmetry.

Bow down my soul and let the wondrous light Of beauty bathe thee from her lofty throne, Bow down before the wonder of man’s might. Bow down in worship, humble and alone; Bow lowly down before the sacred sight Of man’s divinity alive in stone.

DESOLATE

My spirit is a pestilential city, With misery triumphant everywhere, Glutted with baffled hopes and lost to pity; Strange agonies make quiet lodgment there. Its bursting sewers ooze up from below, And spread their loathsome substance through its lanes, Flooding all areas with their evil flow, And blocking all the motion of its veins. Its life is sealed to love or hope or pity; My spirit is a pestilential city.

Above its walls the air is heavy-wet, Brooding in fever mood and hanging thick Round empty tower and broken minaret, Settling upon the tree-tops stricken sick And withered in its dank contagious breath; Their leaves are shrivelled silver, parched decay, Like wilting creepers trailing underneath The chalky yellow of a tropic way. Round crumbling tower and leaning minaret, The air hangs fever-filled and heavy-wet.

And all its many fountains no more spurt; Within the dammed-up tubes they tide and foam Around the drifting sludge and silted dirt, And weep against the soft and liquid loam, And so the city’s ways are washed no more; All is neglected and decayed within. Clean waters beat against its high-walled shore In furious force, but cannot enter in. The suffocated fountains cannot spurt; They foam and weep against the silted dirt.

Beneath the ebon gloom of mounting rocks The little pools lie poisonously still. And birds come to the edge in forlorn flocks, And utter sudden plaintive notes and shrill, Pecking at fatty grey-green substances; But never do they dip their bills and drink. They twitter sad, beneath the mournful trees, And fretfully flit to and from the brink, In little dull brown, green-and-purple flocks, Beneath the jet-gloom of the mounting rocks.

And green-eyed moths of curious design, With gold-black wings and brightly silver-dotted, On nests of flowers among those rocks recline-- Bold, burning blossoms, strangely leopard-spotted, But breathing deadly poison at the lips. Oh, every lovely moth that wanders by, And on the blossoms fatal nectar sips, Is doomed in drooping stupor there to die--All green-eyed moths of curious design That on the fiercely-burning rocks recline.

Oh cold as death is all the loveliness That breathes out of the strangeness of the scene, And sickening like a skeleton’s caress, With clammy clinging fingers, long and lean. Above it float a host of yellow flies, Circling in changeless motion in their place, Snow-thick and mucid in the drooping skies, Swarming across the glassy floor of space. Oh cold as death is all the loveliness And sickening like a skeleton’s caress.

There was a time when, happy with the birds, The little children clapped their hands and laughed; And midst the clouds the glad winds heard their words, And blew down all the merry ways to waft Their music to the scented fields of flowers. Oh sweet were children’s voices in those days, Before the fall of pestilential showers, That drove them forth from all the city’s ways. Now never, never more their silver words Will mingle with the golden of the birds.

Gone, gone forever the familiar forms To which my spirit once so dearly clung, Blown worlds beyond by the destroying storms, And lost away like lovely songs unsung. Yet life still lingers, questioningly strange, Timid and quivering, naked and alone, Biding the cycle of disruptive change, Though all the fond familiar forms are gone Forever gone, the fond familiar forms, Blown worlds beyond by the destroying storms.

ABSENCE[15]

Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool, Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.

Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.

Like soft rain-christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace, Your breath, sweet-scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face.

But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.

And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word, To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.

MY HOUSE

For this peculiar tint that paints my house Peculiar in an alien atmosphere Where other houses wear a kindred hue, I have a stirring always very rare And romance-making in my ardent blood, That channels through my body like a flood.

I know the dark delight of being strange, The penalty of difference in the crowd, The loneliness of wisdom among fools, Yet never have I felt but very proud, Though I have suffered agonies of hell, Of living in my own peculiar cell.

There is an exaltation of man’s life, His hidden life, that he alone can feel. The blended fires that heat his veins within, Shaping his metals into finest steel, Are elements from his own native earth, That the wise gods bestowed on him at birth.

Oh each man’s mind contains an unknown realm Walled in from other men however near, And unimagined in their highest flights Of comprehension or of vision clear; A realm where he withdraws to contemplate Infinity and his own finite state.

Thence he may sometimes catch a god-like glimpse Of mysteries that seem beyond life’s bar; Thence he may hurl his little shaft at heaven And bring down accidentally a star, And drink its foamy dust like sparkling wine And echo accents of the laugh divine.

Then he may fall into a drunken sleep And wake up in his same house painted blue Or white or green or red or brown or black-- His house, his own, whatever be the hue. But things for him will not be what they seem To average men since he has dreamt his dream!

FOOTNOTES:

[11] From “Harlem Shadows” by Claude McKay, Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.

[12] From “Harlem Shadows” by Claude McKay, Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.

[13] From “Harlem Shadows” by Claude McKay, Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.

[14] From “Harlem Shadows” by Claude McKay, Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.

[15] From "Harlem Shadows" by Claude McKay, Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc.

JEAN TOOMER

Jean Toomer was born in Washington, D. C., in 1894. He has since lived there and in New York, receiving his education mainly in these cities. Having traveled over a good part of America, experiencing varied aspects of its life and studying the elements of contemporary problems, in 1918 in the midst of a general interest in art, he gradually centered on that of literature. There followed a four year period devoted entirely to writing, the results of which were first given printed form by _The Double Dealer_ of New Orleans. And soon thereafter, sketches, poems, short stories, and critical reviews began appearing in _Broom_, _The Crisis_, _The Dial_, _The Liberator_, _The Little Review_, _Opportunity_, etc. These brought him in contact with a literary and artistic group in New York composed of such men as Waldo Frank, Alfred Steiglitz, Paul Rosenfeld, Gorham B. Munson, and others. With these he has been associated in the effort to articulate the diverse significances of America. In 1923 his first book, _Cane_, was published by Boni and Liveright, New York.

REAPERS

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground. I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

EVENING SONG

Full moon rising on the waters of my heart, Lakes and moon and fires, Cloine tires, Holding her lips apart.

Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon, Miracle made vesper-keeps, Cloine sleeps, And I’ll be sleeping soon.

Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the moon-waves start, Radiant, resplendently she gleams, Cloine dreams, Lips pressed against my heart.

GEORGIA DUSK

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
The setting sun, too indolent to hold
A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,
Passively darkens for night’s barbecue,

A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,
An orgy for some genius of the South
With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,
Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.

The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop,
And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill,
Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill
Their early promise of bumper crop.

Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile
Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low
Where only chips and stumps are left to show
The solid proof of former domicile.

Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp,
Race memories of king and caravan,
High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,
Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp.

Their voices rise ... the pine trees are guitars,
Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain ...
Their voices rise ... the chorus of the cane
Is caroling a vesper to the stars ...

O singers, resinous and soft your songs
Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.

SONG OF THE SON

Pour O pour that parting soul in song, O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night, And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along.

O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch’s sun declines, Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

In time, for though the sun is setting on A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

An everlasting song, a singing tree, Caroling softly souls of slavery, What they were, and what they are to me, Caroling softly souls of slavery.

COTTON SONG

Come, brother, come. Let’s lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But let’s not wait for it.

God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Can’t blame God if we don’t roll, Come, brother, roll, roll!

Cotton bales are the fleecy way Weary sinner’s bare feet trod, Softly, softly to the throne of God, “We ain’t agwine t’ wait until th’ Judgment Day!

Nassur; nassur, Hump. Eoho, eoho, roll away! We ain’t agwine t’ wait until th’ Judgment Day!”

God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Can’t blame God if we don’t roll, Come, brother, roll, roll!

FACE

Hair-- silver-gray, like streams of stars, Brows-- recurved canoes quivered by the ripples blown by pain, Her eyes--mist of tears condensing on the flesh below And her channeled muscles are cluster grapes of sorrow purple in the evening sun nearly ripe for worms.

NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWER

Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold, Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old, And cotton, scarce as any southern snow, Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow, Failed in its function as the autumn rake; Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take All water from the streams; dead birds were found In wells a hundred feet below the ground-- Such was the season when the flower bloomed. Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed Significance. Superstition saw Something it had never seen before: Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, Beauty so sudden for that time of year.

JOSEPH S. COTTER, JR.

“At Thanksgiving time 1894 Paul Laurence Dunbar, the Negro poet, was a guest in my house in Louisville, Ky. Here for the first time in the South he read the Negro dialect poems that afterwards made him famous.

September 2nd, 1895, my son, the late Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., was born in the room in which these poems were read. He learned to read and write from his sister, Florence Olivia, who was two years older. Before he entered school at the age of six years he had read about thirty books--these included all the readers in the elementary schools--1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8th grades and parts of the Bible.

Mrs. Maria F. Cotter, my wife, and I held both children back. We refused to allow them to be promoted in several instances. Both were graduated from the Louisville Central High School under 16; Florence Olivia won first honor of her class and Joseph the second. He was graduated June 1911. After a year and a half at Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., Florence Olivia wrote us that Joseph had tuberculosis and must leave school. He returned home and was put under a doctor. The 16th of the following December, Florence Olivia returned from Fisk with tuberculosis, and one year from that day she died. It was grieving over his sister’s death that discovered to Joseph his poetic talent. He died February 3rd, 1919, leaving his published poems,--_The Band of Gideon_ and two other unpublished works--one of poems and one of one-act plays.”

_Joseph S. Cotter, Sr._

RAIN MUSIC

On the dusty earth-drum
Beats the falling rain;
Now a whispered murmur,
Now a louder strain.

Slender, silvery drumsticks.
On an ancient drum,
Beat the mellow music
Bidding life to come.

Chords of earth awakened,
Notes of greening spring,
Rise and fall triumphant
Over every thing.

Slender, silvery drumsticks
Beat the long tattoo--
God, the Great Musician,
Calling life anew.

SUPPLICATION

I am so tired and weary,
So tired of the endless fight,
So weary of waiting the dawn
And finding endless night.

That I ask but rest and quiet--
Rest for the days that are gone,
And quiet for the little space
That I must journey on.

AN APRIL DAY

On such a day as this I think,
On such a day as this,
When earth and sky and nature’s whole
Are clad in April’s bliss;
And balmy zephyrs gently waft
Upon your cheek a kiss;
Sufficient is it just to live
On such a day as this.

THE DESERTER

I know not why or whence he came
Or how he chanced to go;
I only know he brought me love
And going, left me woe.

I do not ask that he turn back,
Nor seek where he may rove;
For where woe rules can never be
The dwelling place of love.

For love went out the door of hope,
And on and on has fled;
Caring no more to dwell within
The house where faith is dead.

AND WHAT SHALL YOU SAY?

Brother, come! And let us go unto our God. And when we stand before Him I shall say-- “Lord, I do not hate, I am hated. I scourge no one, I am scourged. I covet no lands, My lands are coveted. I mock no peoples, My people are mocked.” And, brother, what shall you say?

THE BAND OF GIDEON

The band of Gideon roam the sky, The howling wind is their war-cry, The thunder’s role is their trump’s peal, And the lightning’s flash their vengeful steel. Each black cloud Is a fiery steed. And they cry aloud With each strong deed, “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

And men below rear temples high And mock their God with reasons why, And live in arrogance, sin and shame, And rape their souls for the world’s good name. Each black cloud Is a fiery steed. And they cry aloud With each strong deed, “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

The band of Gideon roam the sky, And view the earth with baleful eye; In holy wrath they scourge the land With earth-quake, storm and burning brand. Each black cloud Is a fiery steed. And they cry aloud With each strong deed, “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

The lightnings flash and the thunders roll, And “Lord have mercy on my soul,” Cry men as they fall on the stricken sod, In agony searching for their God. Each black cloud Is a fiery steed. And they cry aloud With each strong deed, “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

And men repent and then forget That heavenly wrath they ever met, The band of Gideon yet will come And strike their tongues of blasphemy dumb. Each black cloud Is a fiery steed. And they cry aloud With each strong deed, “The sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

BLANCHE TAYLOR DICKINSON

I was born on a farm near Franklin, Kentucky, April 15, 1896, and received my education variously ... public schools, Bowling Green Academy, Simmon’s University and Summer schools.

No degree. Taught for several years in my native state. I am a lover of music and divide my time between the typewriter and piano. First published in _Franklin Favorite_, later, _Louisville Leader_, _Chicago Defender_, _Pittsburgh Courier_, _Crisis_, _Opportunity_ and _Wayfarer_. My favorite poets are Countee Cullen, Georgia Douglas Johnson and Edna St. Vincent Millay; my favorite past-time, walking along a crowded street. I have a hunch that I shall become a short story writer and my favorite exertion is trying to perfect my “technique.”

At present I am living in Sewickley, Penna.

THE WALLS OF JERICHO

Jericho is on the inside Of the things the world likes best; “We want in,” the dark ones cried, “We will love it as the rest.”

“Let me learn,” the dark ones say. They have learned that Faith must do More than meditate and pray That a boulder may fall through Making one large man size entrance Into wondrous Jericho. They have learned: forget the distance, Count no steps, nor stop to blow.

Jericho still has her high wall, Futile barrier of Power.... Echoed with the dark ones’ footfall Marching around her every hour; Knowledge strapped down like a knapsack Not cumbersome, and money Not too much to strain the back.... Dark ones seeking milk and honey.

Over in the city staring Up at us along the wall Are the fat ones, trembling, swearing There is no room there for us all! But there’ve been too many rounds Made to give the trip up here. Shout for joy ... hear how it sounds.... The very walls echo with cheer!

POEM

Ah, I know what happiness is...! It is a timid little fawn Creeping softly up to me For one caress, then gone Before I’m through with it ... Away, like dark from dawn! Well I know what happiness is...! It is the break of day that wears A shining dew decked diadem ... An aftermath of tears. Fawn and dawn, emblems of joy ... I’ve played with them for years, And always they will slip away Into the brush of another day.

REVELATION

1

She walked along the crowded street Forgetting all but that she Was walking as the other girls And dressed as carefully.

The windows of the stores were frilled To lure femininity, To empty little pocketbooks And assuage queen vanity.

And so my walker liked a dress Of silver and of gold, Draped on a bisque mannequin So blond and slim and bold.

She took the precious metal home And waved her soft black hair; Powder, rouge and lipstick made Her very neat and fair.

She slipped the dress on carefully, Her vain dream fell away.... The mirror showed a brownskin girl She hadn’t seen all day!

2

“You have classic features, Something like Cleopatra. Eyes like whirlpools And as dangerous.... Weeping willow eyelashes Shade the mighty depth Of your eyes. Your lips Are danger signals Which a fool like me Will not regard.... But go dashing past them To gain a kiss ... or Death.” That is what he said to me, I filled with a sweet and vain regret That Beauty, the stranger, and I had met. His praise was heat to drink me dry. So I found a stream, and with a sigh I stooped to drink ... ah, to see The cruel water reflecting me! Dark-eyed, thick-lipped, harsh, short hair ... But Lucifer saw himself, too, fair.

THAT HILL

It crawled away from ’neath my feet And left me standing there; A little at a time, went up An atmospheric stair.

I couldn’t go for watching it, To see where it would stop; A tree sprang out and waved to me When it had reached the top.

The tree kept nodding friendly like, Beckoning me to follow; And I went crawling up and up, Like it did from the hollow.

Then I saw why the thing would go A-soaring from the dell-- ’Twas nearing Heaven every bound, And fleeing fast from Hell!

TO AN ICICLE

Chilled into a serenity As rigid as your pose You linger trustingly, But a gutter waits for you. Your elegance does not secure You favors with the sun. He is not one to pity fragileness. He thinks all cheeks should burn And feel how tears can run.

FOUR WALLS

Four great walls have hemmed me in. Four strong, high walls: Right and wrong, Shall and shan’t. The mighty pillars tremble when My conscience palls And sings its song-- I can, I can’t.

If for a moment Samson’s strength Were given me I’d shove Them away from where I stand; Free, I know I’d love To ramble soul and all, And never dread to strike a wall.

Again, I wonder would that be Such a happy state for me ... The going, being, doing, sham-- And never knowing where I am. I might not love freedom at all; My tired wings might crave a wall-- Four walls to rise and pen me in This conscious world with guarded men.

FRANK HORNE

“Born in New York City, August 18, 1899, I have lived all but about six years in Brooklyn. I studied at the College of the City of New York, and was guilty there of my first sonnet; but am ever so much more proud of my varsity letters won on the track--once ran a “10 flat” hundred and a 51 sec. quarter. Went to the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology--took degree “Doctor of Optometry.” Have practiced in Chicago and New York. At present writing, am doing some teaching and publicity work at the Fort Valley High and Industrial School, Georgia, while recovering from a mean illness. Have had a hankering to write as long as I can remember, but Charles Johnson, Editor of _Opportunity_ and a certain Gwendolyn Bennett are responsible for my trying it openly. My “published works” are limited to the indulgence of _Opportunity_, _The Crisis_, and _Braithwaite’s Anthology_. It is the perversity of my nature to crave the ability to write good prose, and yet my attempts at poetry are the only things to which any notice is given.”

ON SEEING TWO BROWN BOYS IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH

It is fitting that you be here Little brown boys With Christ-like eyes And curling hair.

Look you on yon crucifix Where He hangs nailed and pierced With head hung low And eyes a’blind with blood that drips From a thorny crown ... Look you well, You shall know this thing.

Judas’ kiss will burn your cheek And you shall be denied By your Peter--And Gethsemane ... You shall know full well Gethsemane ...

You, too, will suffer under Pontius Pilate And feel the rugged cut of rough hewn cross Upon your surging shoulder-- They will spit in your face And laugh ... They will nail you up twixt thieves And gamble for your little garments.

And in this you will exceed God For on this earth You shall know Hell--

O little brown boys With Christ-like eyes And curling hair It is fitting that you be here.

TO A PERSISTENT PHANTOM

I buried you deeper last night You with your tears And your tangled hair You with your lips That kissed so fair I buried you deeper last night.

I buried you deeper last night With fuller breasts And stronger arms With softer lips And newer charms I buried you deeper last night.

Deeper ...... aye, deeper And again tonight Till that gay spirit That once was you Will tear its soul In climbing through ... Deeper ...... aye, deeper I buried you deeper last night.

LETTERS FOUND NEAR A SUICIDE

_To all of you_

My little stone Sinks quickly Into the bosom of this deep, dark pool Of oblivion ... I have troubled its breast but little Yet those far shores That knew me not Will feel the fleeting, furtive kiss Of my tiny concentric ripples....

_To Lewellyn_

You have borne full well The burden of my friendship-- I have drunk deep At your crystal pool, And in return I have polluted its waters With the bile of my hatred. I have flooded your soul With tortuous thoughts, I have played Iscariot To your Pythias....

_To Mother_

I came In the blinding sweep Of ecstatic pain, I go In the throbbing pulse Of aching space-- In the eons between I piled upon you Pain on pain Ache on ache And yet as I go I shall know That you will grieve And want me back....

_To B----_

You have freed me-- In opening wide the doors Of flesh You have freed me Of the binding leash. I have climbed the heights Of white disaster My body screaming In the silver crash of passion ... Before you gave yourself To him I had chained myself For you. But when at last You lowered your proud flag In surrender complete You gave me too, as hostage-- And I have wept my joy At the dawn-tipped shrine Of many breasts.

_To Jean_

When you poured your love Like molten flame Into the throbbing mold Of her pulsing veins Leaving her blood a river of fire And her arteries channels of light, I hated you ... Hated with that primal hate That has its wells In the flesh of me And the flesh of you And the flesh of her I hated you-- Hated with envy Your mastery of her being ... With one fleshy gesture You pricked the iridescent bubble Of my dreams And so to make Your conquest more sweet I tell you now That I hated you.

_To Catalina_

Love thy piano, Oh girl, It will give you back Note for note The harmonies of your soul. It will sing back to you The high songs of your heart. It will give As well as take....

_To Mariette_

I sought consolation In the sorrow of your eyes. You sought reguerdon In the crying of my heart ... We found that shattered dreamers Can be bitter hosts....

_To_ ----

You call it Death of the Spirit And I call it Life ... The vigor of vibration, The muffled knocks, The silver sheen of passion’s flood, The ecstasy of pain ... You call it Death of the Spirit And I call it Life.

_To Telie_

You have made my voice A rippling laugh But my heart A crying thing ... ’Tis better thus: A fleeting kiss And then, The dark....

_To “Chick”_

Oh Achilles of the moleskins And the gridiron Do not wonder Nor doubt that this is I That lies so calmly here-- This is the same exultant beast That so joyously Ran the ball with you In those far flung days of abandon. You remember how recklessly We revelled in the heat and the dust And the swirl of conflict? You remember they called us The Terrible Two? And you remember After we had battered our heads And our bodies Against the stonewall of their defense,-- You remember the signal I would call And how you would look at me In faith and admiration And say “Let’s go,” ... How the lines would clash And strain, And how I would slip through Fighting and squirming Over the line To victory. You remember, Chick? ... When you gaze at me here Let that same light Of faith and admiration Shine in your eyes For I have battered the stark stonewall Before me ... I have kept faith with you And now I have called my signal, Found my opening And slipped through Fighting and squirming Over the line To victory....

_To Wanda_

To you, so far away So cold and aloof, To you, who knew me so well, This is my last Grand Gesture This is my last Great Effect And as I go winging Through the black doors of eternity Is that thin sound I hear Your applause?...

NIGGER

A Chant for Children

Little Black boy Chased down the street-- “Nigger, nigger never die Black face an’ shiney eye, Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”

Hannibal ... Hannibal
Bangin’ thru the Alps
Licked the proud Romans,
Ran home with their scalps--
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”

Othello ... black man
Mighty in war
Listened to Iago
Called his wife a whore--
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”

Crispus ... Attucks
Bullets in his chest
Red blood of freedom
Runnin’ down his vest
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”

Toussant ... Toussant
Made the French flee
Fought like a demon
Set his people free--
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger....”

Jesus ... Jesus
Son of the Lord
--Spit in his face
--Nail him on a board
“Nigger ... nigger ... nigger ...”

Little Black boy Runs down the street-- “Nigger, nigger never die Black face an’ shiney eye, Nigger ... nigger ... nigger ...”

LEWIS ALEXANDER

Lewis Alexander was born July 4, 1900, at Washington, D. C. He was educated in the public schools of Washington and at Howard University where he was a member of the Howard Players. He has also studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Ethiopian Art Theatre for the season 1922-1923 playing in _Salome_ and _The Comedy of Errors_ on Broadway. As the result of a recent tour of North and South Carolina he edited in May 1927 the Negro Number of the _Carolina Magazine_. He has been writing poetry since 1917, specializing in Japanese forms. Two Little Theatre groups in Washington, The Ira Aldridge Players of the Grover Cleveland School and the Randall Community Center Players have been under his direction.

NEGRO WOMAN

The sky hangs heavy tonight Like the hair of a Negro woman. The scars of the moon are curved Like the wrinkles on the brow of a Negro woman.

The stars twinkle tonight Like the glaze in a Negro woman’s eyes, Drinking the tears set flowing by an aging hurt Gnawing at her heart.

The earth trembles tonight Like the quiver of a Negro woman’s eye-lids cupping tears.

AFRICA

Thou art not dead, although the spoiler’s hand Lies heavy as death upon thee; though the wrath Of its accursed might is in thy path And has usurped thy children of their land; Though yet the scourges of a monstrous band Roam on thy ruined fields, thy trampled lanes, Thy ravaged homes and desolated fanes; Thou art not dead, but sleeping,--Motherland.

A mighty country, valorous and free, Thou shalt outlive this terror and this pain; Shall call thy scattered children back to thee, Strong with the memory of their brothers slain; And rise from out thy charnel house to be Thine own immortal, brilliant self again!

TRANSFORMATION

I return the bitterness,
Which you gave to me;
When I wanted loveliness
Tantalant and free.

I return the bitterness
It is washed by tears;
Now it is a loveliness
Garnished through the years.

I return it loveliness,
Having made it so;
For I wore the bitterness
From it long ago.

THE DARK BROTHER

“Lo, I am black but I am comely too, Black as the night, black as the deep dark caves. I am the scion of a race of slaves Who helped to build a nation strong that you And I may stand within the world’s full view, Fearless and firm as dreadnoughts on rough waves; Holding a banner high whose floating braves The opposition of the tried untrue.

Casting an eye of love upon my face, Seeing a newer light within my eyes, A rarer beauty in your brother race Will merge upon your visioning fullwise. Though I am black my heart through love is pure, And you through love my blackness shall endure!”

TANKA I-VIII

I

Could I but retrace The winding stairs fate built me. They fell from my feet. Now I stand on the high round. Down beneath height above depth--

II

Through the eyes of life I looked in at my own heart: A long furrowed field Grown cement waiting for seed Baking in desolation.

III

Drink in moods of joy! Why should the sky be lonely? Neither sun nor moon-- How my heart is shy of night Like Autumn’s leaf brown pendants.

IV

Cold against the sky The blue jays cried at dawning. The larks where are they? Heavily upon the air My ears tuned in to listen.

V

So this is the reed? The very pipes for singing-- Life plays me new songs. Wistfully from out the dawn The crows broke across the sky!

VI

And now Spring has come Blossoming up my garden. I alone unchanged. Moving in my house of Autumn. One leaf alone saves a tree.

VII

By the pool of life Willows are drooping tonight I can see no stars. What dances in the water? O my clouds dripping with tears.

VIII

Could I hear your voice O but this silence is sweet Words mar all beauty. Turn then into your own heart And pluck the roots from the soil--

JAPANESE HOKKU

O apple blossoms Give me your words of silence, Yes, your charming speech.

* * * * *

If you would know me, Do not regard this display; Mingle with my speech.

* * * * *

Why sit like the sphinx, Watching the caravan pass? Join in the parade.

* * * * *

What if the wind blows? What if the leaves are scattered, Now that they are dead?

* * * * *

While trimming the plants I saw some flowers drooping. I am a flower.

* * * * *

This is but my robe, His Majesty gave to me. Garments will decay.

* * * * *

On the flowering twig, Lo! the robin is singing. It must be spring.

* * * * *

Looking up the hill The road was long before me. This road is longer.

* * * * *

Death is not cruel From what I have seen of life; Nothing else remains.

* * * * *

Life is history. Turn not away from the book. Write on every page!

* * * * *

If you had not sung Then what would I imitate, Happy nightingale?

* * * * *

Sitting by the pool, I looked in and saw my face. O that I were blind!

DAY AND NIGHT

The day is a Negro
Yelling out of breath.
The night is a Negro
Laughing up to death.

The day is a jazz band
Blasting loud and wild.
The night is a jazz band
Moaning Blues songs, child.

The day is the sunshine
Undressed in the street.
The night is the sunshine
Dressed from head to feet.

I am like a rainbow Arched across the way. Yes, I am a rainbow Being night nor day.

STERLING A. BROWN

I was born in Washington, D. C., the first of May, 1901. I received primary and secondary education in the Public Schools of that city, and on a farm near Laurel, Md.; entered Williams College in 1918, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1921, graduated in 1922; and received my Master of Arts Degree at Harvard in 1923. Since that time I have been seeking a more liberal education teaching school. I have been inflicted on unsuspecting, helpless students; teaching diverse things at Manassas Summer School in Virginia, Rhetoric and Literature at Virginia Seminary and College, Lynchburg, Va., and Literature at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Mo.

From early years I have _lisped in numbers_ but the numbers seem improper fractions. I have always been interested in people, particularly and generally, and in books. The list runs from Homer to Housman.

Except for an essay on Roland Hayes submitted to an _Opportunity_ contest, and occasional poems and reviews, I have published nothing of the voluminous works cluttering my desk.

ODYSSEY OF BIG BOY

Lemme be wid Casey Jones,
Lemme be wid Stagolee,
Lemme be wid such like men
When Death takes hol’ on me,
When Death takes hol’ on me....

Done skinned as a boy in Kentucky hills,
Druv steel dere as a man,
Done stripped tobacco in Virginia fiels’
Alongst de River Dan,
Alongst de River Dan;

Done mined de coal in West Virginia
Liked dat job jes’ fine
Till a load o’ slate curved roun’ my head
Won’t work in no mo’ mine,
Won’t work in no mo’ mine;

Done shocked de corn in Marylan,
In Georgia done cut cane,
Done planted rice in South Caline,
But won’t do dat again
Do dat no mo’ again.

Been roustabout in Memphis,
Dockhand in Baltimore,
Done smashed up freight on Norfolk wharves
A fust class stevedore,
A fust class stevedore....

Done slung hash yonder in de North
On de ole Fall River Line
Done busted suds in li’l New Yawk
Which ain’t no work o’ mine--
Lawd, ain’t no work o’ mine;

Done worked and loafed on such like jobs
Seen what dey is to see
Done had my time with a pint on my hip
An’ a sweet gal on my knee
Sweet mommer on my knee:

Had stovepipe blonde in Macon
Yaller gal in Marylan
In Richmond had a choklit brown
Called me huh monkey man--
Huh big fool monkey man.

Had two fair browns in Arkansaw
And three in Tennessee
Had Creole gal in New Orleans
Sho Gawd did two time me--
Lawd two time, fo’ time me--

But best gal what I evah had
Done put it over dem
A gal in Southwest Washington
At Four’n half and M--
Four’n half and M....

Done took my livin’ as it came
Done grabbed my joy, done risked my life
Train done caught me on de trestle
Man done caught me wid his wife
His doggone purty wife ...

I done had my women,
I done had my fun
Cain’t do much complainin’
When my jag is done,
Lawd, Lawd, my jag is done.

An’ all dat Big Boy axes
When time comes fo’ to go
Lemme be wid John Henry, steel drivin’ man
Lemme be wid ole Jazzbo;
Lemme be wid ole Jazzbo....

MAUMEE RUTH

Might as well bury her
And bury her deep,
Might as well put her
Where she can sleep.

Might as well lay her
Out in her shiny black;
And for the love of God
Not wish her back.

Maum Sal may miss her
Maum Sal, she only
With no one now to scoff
Sal may be lonely....

Nobody else there is
Who will be caring
How rocky was the road
For her wayfaring;

Nobody be heeding in
Cabin, or town
That she is lying here
In her best gown.

Boy that she suckled
How should he know
Hiding in city holes
Sniffing the ‘snow’?

And how should the news
Pierce Harlem’s din
To reach her baby gal,
Sodden with gin?

To cut her withered heart
They cannot come again,
Preach her the lies about
Jordan and then

Might as well drop her
Deep in the ground
Might as well pray for her
That she sleep sound....

LONG GONE

I laks yo’ kin’ of lovin’
Ain’t never caught you wrong
But it jes ain’ nachal
Fo’ to stay here long;

It jes ain’ nachal
Fo’ a railroad man
With a itch fo’ travellin’
He cain’t understan’....

I looks at de rails
An’ I looks at de ties,
An I hears an ole freight
Puffin’ up de rise,

An’ at nights on my pallet
When all is still
I listens fo’ de empties
Bumpin’ up de hill;

When I oughta be quiet
I is got a itch
Fo’ to hear de whistle blow
Fo’ de crossin’, or de switch,

An’ I knows de time’s a nearin’
When I got to ride
Though its homelike and happy
At yo’ side.

You is done all you could do
To make me stay
Tain’t no fault of yours I’se leavin’--
I’se jes dataway.

I is got to see some people
I ain’ never seen
Gotta highball thu some country
Whah I never been....

I don’t know which way I’m travellin’--
Far or near,
All I knows fo’ certain is
I cain’t stay here.

Ain’t no call at all, sweet woman
Fo’ to carry on,--
Jes my name and jes my habit
To be Long Gone....

TO A CERTAIN LADY, IN HER GARDEN

(_A. S._)

Lady, my lady, come from out the garden, Clayfingered, dirtysmocked, and in my time I too shall learn the quietness of Arden, Knowledge so long a stranger to my rhyme.

What were more fitting than your springtime task? Here, close engirdled by your vines and flowers Surely there is no other grace to ask, No better cloister from the bickering hours.

A step beyond, the dingy streets begin With all their farce, and silly tragedy--But here, unmindful of the futile din You grow your flowers, far wiser certainly,

You and your garden sum the same to me, A sense of strange and momentary pleasure, And beauty snatched--oh, fragmentarily Perhaps, yet who can boast of other seizure?

Oh, you have somehow robbed, I know not how The secret of the loveliness of these Whom you have served so long. Oh, shameless, now You flaunt the winnings of your thieveries.

Thus, I exclaim against you, profiteer.... For purpled evenings spent in pleasing toil, Should you have gained so easily the dear Capricious largesse of the miser soil?

Colorful living in a world grown dull, Quiet sufficiency in weakling days, Delicate happiness, more beautiful For lighting up belittered, grimy ways--

Surely I think I shall remember this, You in your old, rough dress, bedaubed with clay, Your smudgy face parading happiness, Life’s puzzle solved. Perhaps, in turn, you may.

One time, while clipping bushes, tending vines, (Making your brave, sly mock at dastard days,) Laugh gently at these trivial, truthful lines-- And that will be sufficient for my praise.

SALUTAMUS

(O Gentlemen the time of Life is short--Henry IV)

The bitterness of days like these we know; Much, much we know, yet cannot understand What was our crime that such a searing brand Not of our choosing, keeps us hated so. Despair and disappointment only grow, Whatever seeds are planted from our hand, What though some roads wind through a gladsome land? It is a gloomy path that we must go.

And yet we know relief will come some day For these seared breasts; and lads as brave again Will plant and find a fairer crop than ours. It must be due our hearts, our minds, our powers; These are the beacons to blaze out the way. _We must plunge onward; onward, gentlemen_....

CHALLENGE

I said, in drunken pride of youth and you That mischief-making Time would never dare Play his ill-humoured tricks upon us two, Strange and defiant lovers that we were. I said that even Death, Highwayman Death, Could never master lovers such as we, That even when his clutch had throttled breath, My hymns would float in praise, undauntedly.