_Color_




  COLOR

  _By_
  Countee Cullen

  [Illustration]

  Harper & Brothers, Publishers
  New York and London
  mcmxxv




  COLOR

  Copyright, 1925, by Harper & Brothers
  Printed in the United States of America




  To my Mother and Father

  This First Book




_Acknowledgments_


For permission to reprint certain of these poems thanks is hereby given
to the following publications:

  _The American Mercury_
  _The Bookman_
  _The Century_
  _The Crisis_
  _The Conning Tower: New York World_
  _Folio_
  _Harper’s Magazine_
  _Les Continents_
  _The Messenger_
  _The Nation_
  _Opportunity_
  _Palms_
  _Poetry: A Magazine of Verse_
  _The Southwestern Christian Advocate_
  _The Survey Graphic_
  _The World Tomorrow_
  _Vanity Fair_




_Contents_


  _TO YOU WHO READ MY BOOK_               xiii


  COLOR

  YET DO I MARVEL                            3
  A SONG OF PRAISE                           4
  BROWN BOY TO BROWN GIRL                    5
  A BROWN GIRL DEAD                          6
  TO A BROWN GIRL                            7
  TO A BROWN BOY                             8
  BLACK MAGDALENS                            9
  ATLANTIC CITY WAITER                      10
  NEAR WHITE                                11
  TABLEAU                                   12
  HARLEM WINE                               13
  SIMON THE CYRENIAN SPEAKS                 14
  INCIDENT                                  15
  TWO WHO CROSSED A LINE (SHE CROSSES)      16
  TWO WHO CROSSED A LINE (HE CROSSES)       17
  SATURDAY’S CHILD                          18
  THE DANCE OF LOVE                         19
  PAGAN PRAYER                              20
  WISDOM COMETH WITH THE YEARS              22
  TO MY FAIRER BRETHREN                     23
  FRUIT OF THE FLOWER                       24
  THE SHROUD OF COLOR                       26
  HERITAGE                                  36


  EPITAPHS

  FOR A POET                                45
  FOR MY GRANDMOTHER                        46
  FOR A CYNIC                               47
  FOR A SINGER                              48
  FOR A VIRGIN                              49
  FOR A LADY I KNOW                         50
  FOR A LOVELY LADY                         51
  FOR AN ATHEIST                            52
  FOR AN EVOLUTIONIST AND HIS OPPONENT      53
  FOR AN ANARCHIST                          54
  FOR A MAGICIAN                            55
  FOR A PESSIMIST                           56
  FOR A MOUTHY WOMAN                        57
  FOR A PHILOSOPHER                         58
  FOR AN UNSUCCESSFUL SINNER                59
  FOR A FOOL                                60
  FOR ONE WHO GAYLY SOWED HIS OATS          61
  FOR A SKEPTIC                             62
  FOR A FATALIST                            63
  FOR DAUGHTERS OF MAGDALEN                 64
  FOR A WANTON                              65
  FOR A PREACHER                            66
  FOR ONE WHO DIED SINGING OF DEATH         67
  FOR JOHN KEATS, APOSTLE OF BEAUTY         68
  FOR HAZEL HALL, AMERICAN POET             69
  FOR PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR                  70
  FOR JOSEPH CONRAD                         71
  FOR MYSELF                                72
  ALL THE DEAD                              73


  FOR LOVE’S SAKE

  OH, FOR A LITTLE WHILE BE KIND            77
  IF YOU SHOULD GO                          78
  TO ONE WHO SAID ME NAY                    79
  ADVICE TO YOUTH                           80
  CAPRICE                                   81
  SACRAMENT                                 82
  BREAD AND WINE                            83
  SPRING REMINISCENCE                       84


  VARIA

  SUICIDE CHANT                             87
  SHE OF THE DANCING FEET SINGS             89
  JUDAS ISCARIOT                            90
  THE WISE                                  95
  MARY, MOTHER OF CHRIST                    96
  DIALOGUE                                  97
  IN MEMORY OF COL. CHARLES YOUNG           99
  TO MY FRIENDS                            100
  GODS                                     101
  TO JOHN KEATS, POET. AT SPRINGTIME       102
  ON GOING                                 105
  HARSH WORLD THAT LASHEST ME              106
  REQUIESCAM                               108




_To You Who Read My Book_


  Soon every sprinter,
    However fleet,
  Comes to a winter
    Of sure defeat:
  Though he may race
    Like the hunted doe,
  Time has a pace
    To lay him low.

  Soon we who sing,
    However high,
  Must face the Thing
    We cannot fly.
  Yea, though we fling
    Our notes to the sun,
  Time will outsing
    Us every one.

  All things must change
    As the wind is blown;
  Time will estrange
    The flesh from the bone.
  The dream shall elude
    The dreamer’s clasp,
  And only its hood
    Shall comfort his grasp.

  A little while,
    Too brief at most,
  And even my smile
    Will be a ghost.
  A little space,
    A Finger’s crook,
  And who shall trace
    The path I took?

  Who shall declare
    My whereabouts;
  Say if in the air
    My being shouts
  Along light ways,
    Or if in the sea,
  Or deep earth stays
    The germ of me?

  Ah, none knows, none,
    Save (but too well)
  The Cryptic One
    Who will not tell.

  This is my hour
    To wax and climb,
  Flaunt a red flower
    In the face of time.
  And only an hour
    Time gives, then snap
  Goes the flower,
    And dried is the sap.

  Juice of the first
    Grapes of my vine,
  I proffer your thirst
    My own heart’s wine.
  Here of my growing
    A red rose sways,
  Seed of my sowing,
    And work of my days.

  (I run, but time’s
    Abreast with me;
  I sing, but he climbs
    With my highest C.)

  Drink while my blood
    Colors the wine,
  Reach while the bud
    Is still on the vine....

  Then ...
    When the hawks of death
  Tear at my throat
    Till song and breath
  Ebb note by note,
    Turn to this book
  Of the mellow word
    For a singing look
  At the stricken bird.

    Say, “This is the way
  He chirped and sung,
    In the sweet heyday
  When his heart was young.
    Though his throat is bare,
  By death defiled,
    Song labored there
  And bore a child.”

  When the dreadful Ax
    Rives me apart,
  When the sharp wedge cracks
    My arid heart,
  Turn to this book
    Of the singing me
  For a springtime look
    At the wintry tree.

  Say, “Thus it was weighed
    With flower and fruit,
  Ere the Ax was laid
    Unto its root.
  Though the blows fall free
    On a gnarled trunk now,
  Once he was a tree
    With a blossomy bough.”




_Color_




_Yet Do I Marvel_


  I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
  And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
  The little buried mole continues blind,
  Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
  Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
  Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
  If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
  To struggle up a never-ending stair.
  Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
  To catechism by a mind too strewn
  With petty cares to slightly understand
  What awful brain compels His awful hand.
  Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
  To make a poet black, and bid him sing!




_A Song of Praise_

(_For one who praised his lady’s being fair._)


  You have not heard my love’s dark throat,
    Slow-fluting like a reed,
  Release the perfect golden note
    She caged there for my need.

  Her walk is like the replica
    Of some barbaric dance
  Wherein the soul of Africa
    Is winged with arrogance.

  And yet so light she steps across
    The ways her sure feet pass,
  She does not dent the smoothest moss
    Or bend the thinnest grass.

  My love is dark as yours is fair,
    Yet lovelier I hold her
  Than listless maids with pallid hair,
    And blood that’s thin and colder.

  You-proud-and-to-be-pitied one,
    Gaze on her and despair;
  Then seal your lips until the sun
    Discovers one as fair.




_Brown Boy to Brown Girl_

(_Remembrance on a hill_) (_For Yolande_)


  “As surely as I hold your hand in mine,
  As surely as your crinkled hair belies
  The enamoured sun pretending that he dies
  While still he loiters in its glossy shine,
  As surely as I break the slender line
  That spider linked us with, in no least wise
  Am I uncertain that these alien skies
  Do not our whole life measure and confine.
  No less, once in a land of scarlet suns
  And brooding winds, before the hurricane
  Bore down upon us, long before this pain,
  We found a place where quiet water runs;
  I held your hand this way upon a hill,
  And felt my heart forebear, my pulse grow still.”




_A Brown Girl Dead_


  With two white roses on her breasts,
    White candles at head and feet,
  Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;
    Lord Death has found her sweet.

  Her mother pawned her wedding ring
    To lay her out in white;
  She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing
    To see herself tonight.




_To a Brown Girl_

(_For Roberta_)


  What if his glance is bold and free,
    His mouth the lash of whips?
  So should the eyes of lovers be,
    And so a lover’s lips.

  What if no puritanic strain
    Confines him to the nice?
  He will not pass this way again,
    Nor hunger for you twice.

  Since in the end consort together
    Magdalen and Mary,
  Youth is the time for careless weather:
    Later, lass, be wary.




_To a Brown Boy_


  That brown girl’s swagger gives a twitch
    To beauty like a queen;
  Lad, never dam your body’s itch
    When loveliness is seen.

  For there is ample room for bliss
    In pride in clean, brown limbs,
  And lips know better how to kiss
    Than how to raise white hymns.

  And when your body’s death gives birth
    To soil for spring to crown,
  Men will not ask if that rare earth
    Was white flesh once, or brown.




_Black Magdalens_


  These have no Christ to spit and stoop
    To write upon the sand,
  Inviting him that has not sinned
    To raise the first rude hand.

  And if he came they could not buy
    Rich ointment for his feet,
  The body’s sale scarce yields enough
   To let the body eat.

  The chaste clean ladies pass them by
   And draw their skirts aside,
  But Magdalens have a ready laugh;
    They wrap their wounds in pride.

  They fare full ill since Christ forsook
    The cross to mount a throne,
  And Virtue still is stooping down
    To cast the first hard stone.




_Atlantic City Waiter_


  With subtle poise he grips his tray
    Of delicate things to eat;
  Choice viands to their mouths half way,
    The ladies watch his feet

  Go carving dexterous avenues
    Through sly intricacies;
  Ten thousand years on jungle clues
    Alone shaped feet like these.

  For him to be humble who is proud
    Needs colder artifice;
  Though half his pride is disavowed,
    In vain the sacrifice.

  Sheer through his acquiescent mask
    Of bland gentility,
  The jungle flames like a copper cask
    Set where the sun strikes free.




_Near White_


  Ambiguous of race they stand,
    By one disowned, scorned of another,
  Not knowing where to stretch a hand,
    And cry, “My sister” or “My brother.”




_Tableau_

_For Donald Duff_


  Locked arm in arm they cross the way,
    The black boy and the white,
  The golden splendor of the day,
    The sable pride of night.

  From lowered blinds the dark folk stare,
    And here the fair folk talk,
  Indignant that these two should dare
    In unison to walk.

  Oblivious to look and word
    They pass, and see no wonder
  That lightning brilliant as a sword
    Should blaze the path of thunder.




_Harlem Wine_


  This is not water running here,
    These thick rebellious streams
  That hurtle flesh and bone past fear
    Down alleyways of dreams.

  This is a wine that must flow on
    Not caring how nor where,
  So it has ways to flow upon
    Where song is in the air.

  So it can woo an artful flute
    With loose, elastic lips,
  Its measurement of joy compute
    With blithe, ecstatic hips.




_Simon the Cyrenian Speaks_


  He never spoke a word to me,
    And yet He called my name;
  He never gave a sign to me,
    And yet I knew and came.

  At first I said, “I will not bear
    His cross upon my back;
  He only seeks to place it there
    Because my skin is black.”

  But He was dying for a dream,
    And He was very meek,
  And in His eyes there shone a gleam
    Men journey far to seek.

  It was Himself my pity bought;
    I did for Christ alone
  What all of Rome could not have wrought
    With bruise of lash or stone.




_Incident_

(_For Eric Walrond_)


  Once riding in old Baltimore,
    Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
  I saw a Baltimorean
    Keep looking straight at me.

  Now I was eight and very small,
    And he was no whit bigger,
  And so I smiled, but he poked out
    His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

  I saw the whole of Baltimore
    From May until December;
  Of all the things that happened there
    That’s all that I remember.




_Two Who Crossed a Line_

(_She Crosses_)


  From where she stood the air she craved
    Smote with the smell of pine;
  It was too much to bear; she braved
    Her gods and crossed the line.

  And we were hurt to see her go,
    With her fair face and hair,
  And veins too thin and blue to show
    What mingled blood flowed there.

  We envied her a while, who still
    Pursued the hated track;
  Then we forgot her name, until
    One day her shade came back.

  Calm as a wave without a crest,
    Sorrow-proud and sorrow-wise,
  With trouble sucking at her breast,
    With tear-disdainful eyes,

  She slipped into her ancient place,
    And, no word asked, gave none;
  Only the silence in her face
    Said seats were dear in the sun.




_Two Who Crossed a Line_

(_He Crosses_)


  He rode across like a cavalier,
    Spurs clicking hard and loud;
  And where he tarried dropped his tear
    On heads he left low-bowed.

  But, “Even Stephen,” he cried, and struck
    His steed an urgent blow;
  He swore by youth he was a buck
    With savage oats to sow.

  To even up some standing scores,
    From every flower bed
  He passed, he plucked by threes and fours
    Till wheels whirled in his head.

  But long before the drug could tell,
    He took his anodyne;
  With scornful grace, he bowed farewell
    And retraversed the line.




_Saturday’s Child_


  Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
    With the stars strung for a rattle;
  I cut my teeth as the black raccoon--
    For implements of battle.

  Some are swaddled in silk and down,
    And heralded by a star;
  They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
    On a night that was black as tar.

  For some, godfather and goddame
    The opulent fairies be;
  Dame Poverty gave me my name,
    And Pain godfathered me.

  For I was born on Saturday--
    “Bad time for planting a seed,”
  Was all my father had to say,
    And, “One mouth more to feed.”

  Death cut the strings that gave me life,
    And handed me to Sorrow,
  The only kind of middle wife
    My folks could beg or borrow.




_The Dance of Love_

(_After reading René Maran’s “Batouala”_)


  All night we danced upon our windy hill,
  Your dress a cloud of tangled midnight hair,
  And love was much too much for me to wear
  My leaves; the killer roared above his kill,
  But you danced on, and when some star would spill
  Its red and white upon you whirling there,
  I sensed a hidden beauty in the air;
  Though you danced on, my heart and I stood still.

  But suddenly a bit of morning crept
  Along your trembling sides of ebony;
  I saw the tears your tired limbs had wept,
  And how your breasts heaved high, how languidly
  Your dark arms moved; I drew you close to me;
  We flung ourselves upon our hill and slept.




_Pagan Prayer_


  Not for myself I make this prayer,
    But for this race of mine
  That stretches forth from shadowed places
    Dark hands for bread and wine.

  For me, my heart is pagan mad,
    My feet are never still,
  But give them hearths to keep them warm
    In homes high on a hill.

  For me, my faith lies fallowing,
    I bow not till I see,
  But these are humble and believe;
    Bless their credulity.

  For me, I pay my debts in kind,
    And see no better way,
  Bless these who turn the other cheek
    For love of you, and pray.

  Our Father, God, our Brother, Christ--
    So are we taught to pray;
  Their kinship seems a little thing
    Who sorrow all the day.

  Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ,
    Or are we bastard kin,
  That to our plaints your ears are closed,
    Your doors barred from within?

  Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ,
    Retrieve my race again;
  So shall you compass this black sheep,
    This pagan heart. Amen.




_Wisdom Cometh With the Years_


  Now I am young and credulous,
    My heart is quick to bleed
  At courage in the tremulous
    Slow sprouting of a seed.

  Now I am young and sensitive,
    Man’s lack can stab me through;
  I own no stitch I would not give
    To him that asked me to.

  Now I am young and a fool for love,
    My blood goes mad to see
  A brown girl pass me like a dove
    That flies melodiously.

  Let me be lavish of my tears,
    And dream that false is true;
  Though wisdom cometh with the years,
    The barren days come, too.




_To My Fairer Brethren_


  Though I score you with my best,
    Treble circumstance
  Must confirm the verdict, lest
    It be laid to chance.

  Insufficient that I match you
    Every coin you flip;
  Your demand is that I catch you
    Squarely on the hip.

  Should I wear my wreaths a bit
    Rakishly and proud,
  I have bought my right to it;
    Let it be allowed.




_Fruit of the Flower_


  My father is a quiet man
    With sober, steady ways;
  For simile, a folded fan;
    His nights are like his days.

  My mother’s life is puritan,
    No hint of cavalier,
  A pool so calm you’re sure it can
    Have little depth to fear.

  And yet my father’s eyes can boast
    How full his life has been;
  There haunts them yet the languid ghost
    Of some still sacred sin.

  And though my mother chants of God,
    And of the mystic river,
  I’ve seen a bit of checkered sod
    Set all her flesh aquiver.

  Why should he deem it pure mischance
    A son of his is fain
  To do a naked tribal dance
    Each time he hears the rain?

  Why should she think it devil’s art
    That all my songs should be
  Of love and lovers, broken heart,
    And wild sweet agony?

  Who plants a seed begets a bud,
    Extract of that same root;
  Why marvel at the hectic blood
    That flushes this wild fruit?




_The Shroud of Color_

(_For Llewellyn Ransom_)


  “Lord, being dark,” I said, “I cannot bear
  The further touch of earth, the scented air;
  Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair
  My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt
  Beneath my brother’s heel; there is a hurt
  In all the simple joys which to a child
  Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled
  By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails
  To see; too great a cost this birth entails.
  I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter than
  The worth of bearing it, just to be man.
  I am not brave enough to pay the price
  In full; I lack the strength to sacrifice.
  I who have burned my hands upon a star,
  And climbed high hills at dawn to view the far
  Illimitable wonderments of earth,
  For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth,
  For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat
  Till all the world was sea, and I a boat
  Unmoored, on what strange quest I willed to float;
  Who wore a many-colored coat of dreams,
  Thy gift, O Lord--I whom sun-dabbled streams
  Have washed, whose bare brown thighs have held the sun
  Incarcerate until his course was run,
  I who considered man a high-perfected
  Glass where loveliness could lie reflected,
  Now that I sway athwart Truth’s deep abyss,
  Denuding man for what he was and is,
  Shall breath and being so inveigle me
  That I can damn my dreams to hell, and be
  Content, each new-born day, anew to see
  The steaming crimson vintage of my youth
  Incarnadine the altar-slab of Truth?

  Or hast Thou, Lord, somewhere I cannot see,
  A lamb imprisoned in a bush for me?

  Not so? Then let me render one by one
  Thy gifts, while still they shine; some little sun
  Yet gilds these thighs; my coat, albeit worn,
  Still holds its colors fast; albeit torn,
  My heart will laugh a little yet, if I
  May win of Thee this grace, Lord: on this high
  And sacrificial hill ’twixt earth and sky,
  To dream still pure all that I loved, and die.
  There is no other way to keep secure
  My wild chimeras; grave-locked against the lure
  Of Truth, the small hard teeth of worms, yet less
  Envenomed than the mouth of Truth, will bless
  Them into dust and happy nothingness.
  Lord, Thou art God; and I, Lord, what am I
  But dust? With dust my place. Lord, let me die.”

  Across the earth’s warm, palpitating crust
  I flung my body in embrace; I thrust
  My mouth into the grass and sucked the dew,
  Then gave it back in tears my anguish drew;
  So hard I pressed against the ground, I felt
  The smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smelt
  The next year’s flowering; all this to speed
  My body’s dissolution, fain to feed
  The worms. And so I groaned, and spent my strength
  Until, all passion spent, I lay full length
  And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing.

  So lay till lifted on a great black wing
  That had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunk
  To hamper it; with me all time had sunk
  Into oblivion; when I awoke
  The wing hung poised above two cliffs that broke
  The bowels of the earth in twain, and cleft
  The seas apart. Below, above, to left,
  To right, I saw what no man saw before:
  Earth, hell, and heaven; sinew, vein, and core.
  All things that swim or walk or creep or fly,
  All things that live and hunger, faint and die,
  Were made majestic then and magnified
  By sight so clearly purged and deified.
  The smallest bug that crawls was taller than
  A tree, the mustard seed loomed like a man.
  The earth that writhes eternally with pain
  Of birth, and woe of taking back her slain,
  Laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight,
  And all was struggle, gasping breath, and fight.
  A blind worm here dug tunnels to the light,
  And there a seed, racked with heroic pain,
  Thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain;
  It climbed; it died; the old love conquered me
  To weep the blossom it would never be.
  But here a bud won light; it burst and flowered
  Into a rose whose beauty challenged, “Coward!”
  There was no thing alive save only I
  That held life in contempt and longed to die.
  And still I writhed and moaned, “The curse, the curse,
  Than animated death, can death be worse?”

  “_Dark child of sorrow, mine no less, what art
  Of mine can make thee see and play thy part?
  The key to all strange things is in thy heart._”

  What voice was this that coursed like liquid fire
  Along my flesh, and turned my hair to wire?

  I raised my burning eyes, beheld a field
  All multitudinous with carnal yield,
  A grim ensanguined mead whereon I saw
  Evolve the ancient fundamental law
  Of tooth and talon, fist and nail and claw.
  There with the force of living, hostile hills
  Whose clash the hemmed-in vale with clamor fills,
  With greater din contended fierce majestic wills
  Of beast with beast, of man with man, in strife
  For love of what my heart despised, for life
  That unto me at dawn was now a prayer
  For night, at night a bloody heart-wrung tear
  For day again; for _this_, these groans
  From tangled flesh and interlockèd bones.
  And no thing died that did not give
  A testimony that it longed to live.
  Man, strange composite blend of brute and god,
  Pushed on, nor backward glanced where last he trod.
  He seemed to mount a misty ladder flung
  Pendant from a cloud, yet never gained a rung
  But at his feet another tugged and clung.
  My heart was still a pool of bitterness,
  Would yield nought else, nought else confess.
  I spoke (although no form was there
  To see, I knew an ear was there to hear),
  “Well, let them fight; they _can_ whose flesh is fair.”

  Crisp lightning flashed; a wave of thunder shook
  My wing; a pause, and then a speaking, “Look.”

  I scarce dared trust my ears or eyes for awe
  Of what they heard, and dread of what they saw;
  For, privileged beyond degree, this flesh
  Beheld God and His heaven in the mesh
  Of Lucifer’s revolt, saw Lucifer
  Glow like the sun, and like a dulcimer
  I heard his sin-sweet voice break on the yell
  Of God’s great warriors: Gabriel,
  Saint Clair and Michael, Israfel and Raphael.
  And strange it was to see God with His back
  Against a wall, to see Christ hew and hack
  Till Lucifer, pressed by the mighty pair,
  And losing inch by inch, clawed at the air
  With fevered wings; then, lost beyond repair,
  He tricked a mass of stars into his hair;
  He filled his hands with stars, crying as he fell,
  “A star’s a star although it burns in hell.”
  So God was left to His divinity,
  Omnipotent at that most costly fee.

  There was a lesson here, but still the clod
  In me was sycophant unto the rod,
  And cried, “Why mock me thus? Am I a god?”

  “_One trial more: this failing, then I give
  You leave to die; no further need to live._”

  Now suddenly a strange wild music smote
  A chord long impotent in me; a note
  Of jungles, primitive and subtle, throbbed
  Against my echoing breast, and tom-toms sobbed
  In every pulse-beat of my frame. The din
  A hollow log bound with a python’s skin
  Can make wrought every nerve to ecstasy,
  And I was wind and sky again, and sea,
  And all sweet things that flourish, being free.

  Till all at once the music changed its key.

  And now it was of bitterness and death,
  The cry the lash extorts, the broken breath
  Of liberty enchained; and yet there ran
  Through all a harmony of faith in man,
  A knowledge all would end as it began.
  All sights and sounds and aspects of my race
  Accompanied this melody, kept pace
  With it; with music all their hopes and hates
  Were charged, not to be downed by all the fates.
  And somehow it was borne upon my brain
  How being dark, and living through the pain
  Of it, is courage more than angels have. I knew
  What storms and tumults lashed the tree that grew
  This body that I was, this cringing I
  That feared to contemplate a changing sky,
  This that I grovelled, whining, “Let me die,”
  While others struggled in Life’s abattoir.
  The cries of all dark people near or far
  Were billowed over me, a mighty surge
  Of suffering in which my puny grief must merge
  And lose itself; I had no further claim to urge
  For death; in shame I raised my dust-grimed head,
  And though my lips moved not, God knew I said,
  “Lord, not for what I saw in flesh or bone
  Of fairer men; not raised on faith alone;
  Lord, I will live persuaded by mine own.
  I cannot play the recreant to these;
  My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.”

  With the whiz of a sword that severs space,
  The wing dropped down at a dizzy pace,
  And flung me on my hill flat on my face;
  Flat on my face I lay defying pain,
  Glad of the blood in my smallest vein,
  And in my hands I clutched a loyal dream,
  Still spitting fire, bright twist and coil and gleam,
  And chiselled like a hound’s white tooth.
  “Oh, I will match you yet,” I cried, “to truth.”

  Right glad I was to stoop to what I once had spurned,
  Glad even unto tears; I laughed aloud; I turned
  Upon my back, and though the tears for joy would run,
  My sight was clear; I looked and saw the rising sun.




_Heritage_

(_For Harold Jackman_)


  What is Africa to me:
  Copper sun or scarlet sea,
  Jungle star or jungle track,
  Strong bronzed men, or regal black
  Women from whose loins I sprang
  When the birds of Eden sang?
  _One three centuries removed
  From the scenes his fathers loved,
  Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
  What is Africa to me?_

  So I lie, who all day long
  Want no sound except the song
  Sung by wild barbaric birds
  Goading massive jungle herds,
  Juggernauts of flesh that pass
  Trampling tall defiant grass
  Where young forest lovers lie,
  Plighting troth beneath the sky.
  So I lie, who always hear,
  Though I cram against my ear
  Both my thumbs, and keep them there,
  Great drums throbbing through the air.
  So I lie, whose fount of pride,
  Dear distress, and joy allied,
  Is my somber flesh and skin,
  With the dark blood dammed within
  Like great pulsing tides of wine
  That, I fear, must burst the fine
  Channels of the chafing net
  Where they surge and foam and fret.

  Africa? A book one thumbs
  Listlessly, till slumber comes.
  Unremembered are her bats
  Circling through the night, her cats
  Crouching in the river reeds,
  Stalking gentle flesh that feeds
  By the river brink; no more
  Does the bugle-throated roar
  Cry that monarch claws have leapt
  From the scabbards where they slept.
  Silver snakes that once a year
  Doff the lovely coats you wear,
  Seek no covert in your fear
  Lest a mortal eye should see;
  What’s your nakedness to me?
  Here no leprous flowers rear
  Fierce corollas in the air;
  Here no bodies sleek and wet,
  Dripping mingled rain and sweat,
  Tread the savage measures of
  Jungle boys and girls in love.
  What is last year’s snow to me,
  Last year’s anything? The tree
  Budding yearly must forget
  How its past arose or set--
  Bough and blossom, flower, fruit,
  Even what shy bird with mute
  Wonder at her travail there,
  Meekly labored in its hair.
  _One three centuries removed
  From the scenes his fathers loved,
  Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
  What is Africa to me?_

  So I lie, who find no peace
  Night or day, no slight release
  From the unremittant beat
  Made by cruel padded feet
  Walking through my body’s street.
  Up and down they go, and back,
  Treading out a jungle track.
  So I lie, who never quite
  Safely sleep from rain at night--
  I can never rest at all
  When the rain begins to fall;
  Like a soul gone mad with pain
  I must match its weird refrain;
  Ever must I twist and squirm,
  Writhing like a baited worm,
  While its primal measures drip
  Through my body, crying, “Strip!
  Doff this new exuberance.
  Come and dance the Lover’s Dance!”
  In an old remembered way
  Rain works on me night and day.

  Quaint, outlandish heathen gods
  Black men fashion out of rods,
  Clay, and brittle bits of stone,
  In a likeness like their own,
  My conversion came high-priced;
  I belong to Jesus Christ,
  Preacher of humility;
  Heathen gods are naught to me.

  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
  So I make an idle boast;
  Jesus of the twice-turned cheek,
  Lamb of God, although I speak
  With my mouth thus, in my heart
  Do I play a double part.
  Ever at Thy glowing altar
  Must my heart grow sick and falter,
  Wishing He I served were black,
  Thinking then it would not lack
  Precedent of pain to guide it,
  Let who would or might deride it;
  Surely then this flesh would know
  Yours had borne a kindred woe.
  Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,
  Daring even to give You
  Dark despairing features where,
  Crowned with dark rebellious hair,
  Patience wavers just so much as
  Mortal grief compels, while touches
  Quick and hot, of anger, rise
  To smitten cheek and weary eyes.
  Lord, forgive me if my need
  Sometimes shapes a human creed.

  _All day long and all night through,
  One thing only must I do:
  Quench my pride and cool my blood,
  Lest I perish in the flood.
  Lest a hidden ember set
  Timber that I thought was wet
  Burning like the dryest flax,
  Melting like the merest wax,
  Lest the grave restore its dead.
  Not yet has my heart or head
  In the least way realized
  They and I are civilized._




_Epitaphs_




_For a Poet_


  I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,
  And laid them away in a box of gold;
  Where long will cling the lips of the moth,
  I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth;
  I hide no hate; I am not even wroth
  Who found earth’s breath so keen and cold;
  I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,
  And laid them away in a box of gold.




_For My Grandmother_


  This lovely flower fell to seed;
    Work gently, sun and rain;
  She held it as her dying creed
    That she would grow again.




_For a Cynic_


  Birth is a crime
  All men commit;
  Life gives them time
  To atone for it;
  Death ends the rhyme
  As the price for it.




_For a Singer_


  Death clogged this flute
    At its highest note;
  Song sleeps here mute
    In this breathless throat.




_For a Virgin_


  For forty years I shunned the lust
    Inherent in my clay;
  Death only was so amorous
    I let him have his way.




_For a Lady I Know_


  She even thinks that up in heaven
    Her class lies late and snores,
  While poor black cherubs rise at seven
    To do celestial chores.




_For a Lovely Lady_


  A creature slender as a reed,
    And sad-eyed as a doe
  Lies here (but take my word for it,
    And do not pry below).




_For an Atheist_


  Mountains cover me like rain,
  Billows whirl and rise;
  Hide me from the stabbing pain
  In His reproachful eyes.




_For an Evolutionist and His Opponent_


  Showing that our ways agreed,
    Death is proof enough;
  Body seeks the primal clay,
    Soul transcends the slough.




_For an Anarchist_


  What matters that I stormed and swore?
    Not Samson with an ass’s jaw,
  Not though a forest of hair he wore,
    Could break death’s adamantine law.




_For a Magician_


  I whose magic could explore
    Ways others might not guess or see,
  Now am barred behind a door
    That has no “Open Sesame.”




_For a Pessimist_


  He wore his coffin for a hat,
    Calamity his cape,
  While on his face a death’s-head sat
    And waved a bit of crape.




_For a Mouthy Woman_


  God and the devil still are wrangling
    Which should have her, which repel;
  God wants no discord in his heaven;
    Satan has enough in hell.




_For a Philosopher_


  Here lies one who tried to solve
    The riddle of being and breath:
  The wee blind mole that gnaws his bones
    Tells him the answer is death.




_For an Unsuccessful Sinner_


  I boasted my sins were sure to sink me
    Out of all sound and sight of glory;
  And the most I’ve won for all my pains
    Is a century of purgatory.




_For a Fool_


  On earth the wise man makes the rules,
    And is the fool’s adviser,
  But here the wise are as the fools,
    (And no man is the wiser).




_For One Who Gayly Sowed His Oats_


  My days were a thing for me to live,
    For others to deplore;
  I took of life all it could give:
    Rind, inner fruit, and core.




_For a Skeptic_


  Blood-brother unto Thomas whose
    Weak faith doubt kept in trammels,
  His little credence strained at gnats--
    But grew robust on camels.




_For a Fatalist_


  Life ushers some as heirs-elect
    To weather wind and gale;
  Here lies a man whose ships were wrecked
    Ere he could hoist a sail.




_For Daughters of Magdalen_


  Ours is the ancient story:
    Delicate flowers of sin,
  Lilies, arrayed in glory,
    That would not toil nor spin.




_For a Wanton_


  To men no more than so much cover
    For them to doff or try,
  I found in Death a constant lover:
    Here in his arms I lie.




_For a Preacher_


  Vanity of vanities,
    All is vanity; yea,
  Even the rod He flayed you with
    Crumbled and turned to clay.




_For One Who Died Singing of Death_


  He whose might you sang so well
    Living, will not let you rust:
  Death has set the golden bell
    Pealing in the courts of dust.




_For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty_


  Not writ in water, nor in mist,
    Sweet lyric throat, thy name;
  Thy singing lips that cold death kissed
    Have seared his own with flame.




_For Hazel Hall, American Poet_


  Soul-troubled at the febrile ways of breath,
    Her timid breast shot through with faint alarm,
  “Yes, I’m a stranger here,” she said to Death,
    “It’s kind of you to let me take your arm.”




_For Paul Laurence Dunbar_


  Born of the sorrowful of heart,
    Mirth was a crown upon his head;
  Pride kept his twisted lips apart
    In jest, to hide a heart that bled.




_For Joseph Conrad_


  Not of the dust, but of the wave
  His final couch should be;
  They lie not easy in a grave
  Who once have known the sea.
  How shall earth’s meagre bed enthrall
  The hardiest seaman of them all?




_For Myself_


  What’s in this grave is worth your tear;
    There’s more than the eye can see;
  Folly and Pride and Love lie here
    Buried alive with me.




_All the Dead_


  Priest and layman, virgin, strumpet,
    Good and ill commingled sleep,
  Waiting till the dreadful trumpet
    Separates the wolves and sheep.




_For Love’s Sake_




_Oh, for a Little While Be Kind_

(_For Ruth Marie_)


  Oh, for a little while be kind to me
  Who stand in such imperious need of you,
  And for a fitful space let my head lie
  Happily on your passion’s frigid breast.
  Although yourself no more resigned to me
  Than on all bitter yesterdays I knew,
  This half a loaf from sumptuous crumbs your shy
  Reneging hand lets fall shall make me blest.
  The sturdy homage of a love that throws
  Its strength about you, dawn and dusk, at bed
  And board, is not for scorn. When all is said
  With final amen certitude, who knows
  But Dives found a matchless fragrance fled
  When Lazarus no longer shocked his nose?




_If You Should Go_


  Love, leave me like the light,
    The gently passing day;
  We would not know, but for the night,
    When it has slipped away.

  Go quietly; a dream,
    When done, should leave no trace
  That it has lived, except a gleam
    Across the dreamer’s face.




_To One Who Said Me Nay_


  This much the gods vouchsafe today:
    That we two lie in the clover,
  Watching the heavens dip and sway,
    With galleons sailing over.

  This much is granted for an hour:
    That we are young and tender,
  That I am bee and you are flower,
    Honey-mouthed and swaying slender.

  This sweet of sweets is ours now:
    To wander through the land,
  Plucking an apple from its bough
    To toss from hand to hand.

  No thing is certain, joy nor sorrow,
    Except the hour we know it;
  Oh, wear my heart today; tomorrow
    Who knows where the winds will blow it?




_Advice to Youth_

(_For Guillaume_)


  Since little time is granted here
    For pride in pain or play,
  Since blood soon cools before that Fear
    That makes our prowess clay,
  If lips to kiss are freely met,
    Lad, be not proud nor shy;
  There are no lips where men forget,
    And undesiring lie.




_Caprice_


  “I’ll tell him, when he comes,” she said,
    “Body and baggage, to go,
  Though the night be darker than my hair,
    And the ground be hard with snow.”

  But when he came with his gay black head
    Thrown back, and his lips apart,
  She flipped a light hair from his coat,
    And sobbed against his heart.




_Sacrament_


  She gave her body for my meat,
    Her soul to be my wine,
  And prayed that I be made complete
    In sunlight and starshine.

  With such abandoned grace she gave
    Of all that passion taught her,
  She never knew her tidal wave
    Cast bread on stagnant water.




_Bread and Wine_


  From death of star to new star’s birth,
    This ache of limb, this throb of head,
  This sweaty shop, this smell of earth,
    For this we pray, “Give daily bread.”

  Then tenuous with dreams the night,
    The feel of soft brown hands in mine,
  Strength from your lips for one more fight:
    Bread’s not so dry when dipped in wine.




_Spring Reminiscence_


  “My sweet,” you sang, and, “Sweet,” I sang,
    And sweet we sang together,
  Glad to be young as the world was young,
    Two colts too strong for a tether.

  Shall ever a spring be like that spring,
    Or apple blossoms as white;
  Or ever clover smell like the clover
    We lay upon that night?

  Shall ever your hand lie in my hand,
    Pulsing to it, I wonder;
  Or have the gods, being jealous gods,
    Envied us our thunder?




_Varia_




_Suicide Chant_


  I am the seed
    The Sower sowed;
  I am the deed
    His hand bestowed
  Upon the world.

  Censure me not
    If a rank weed flood
  The garden plot,
    Instead of a bud
  To be unfurled.

  Bridle your blame
    If the deed prove less
  Than the bruited fame
    With which it came
  From nothingness.

  The seed of a weed
    Cannot be flowered,
  Nor a hero’s deed
    Spring from a coward.

  Pull up the weed;
    Bring plow and mower;
  Then fetch new seed
    For the hand of the Sower.




_She of the Dancing Feet Sings_

(_To Ottie Graham_)


  “And what would I do in heaven, pray,
    Me with my dancing feet,
  And limbs like apple boughs that sway
    When the gusty rain winds beat?

  And how would I thrive in a perfect place
    Where dancing would be sin,
  With not a man to love my face,
    Nor an arm to hold me in?

  The seraphs and the cherubim
    Would be too proud to bend
  To sing the faery tunes that brim
    My heart from end to end.

  The wistful angels down in hell
    Will smile to see my face,
  And understand, because they fell
    From that all-perfect place.”




_Judas Iscariot_


  I think when Judas’ mother heard
    His first faint cry the night
  That he was born, that worship stirred
    Her at the sound and sight.
  She thought his was as fair a frame
    As flesh and blood had worn;
  I think she made this lovely name
    For him--“Star of my morn.”

  As any mother’s son he grew
    From spring to crimson spring;
  I think his eyes were black, or blue,
    His hair curled like a ring.
  His mother’s heart-strings were a lute
    Whereon he all day played;
  She listened rapt, abandoned, mute,
    To every note he made.

  I think he knew the growing Christ,
    And played with Mary’s son,
  And where mere mortal craft sufficed,
    There Judas may have won.
  Perhaps he little cared or knew,
    So folly-wise is youth,
  That He whose hand his hand clung to
    Was flesh-embodied Truth;

  Until one day he heard young Christ,
    With far-off eyes agleam,
  Tell of a mystic, solemn tryst
    Between Him and a dream.
  And Judas listened, wonder-eyed,
    Until the Christ was through,
  Then said, “And I, though good betide,
    Or ill, will go with you.”

  And so he followed, heard Christ preach,
    Saw how by miracle
  The blind man saw, the dumb got speech,
    The leper found him well.
  And Judas in those holy hours
    Loved Christ, and loved Him much,
  And in his heart he sensed dead flowers
    Bloom at the Master’s touch.

  And when Christ felt the death hour creep
    With sullen, drunken lurch,
  He said to Peter, “Feed my sheep,
    And build my holy church.”
  He gave to each the special task
    That should be his to do,
  But reaching one, I hear him ask,
    “What shall I give to you?”

  Then Judas in his hot desire
    Said, “Give me what you will.”
  Christ spoke to him with words of fire,
    “Then, Judas, you must kill
  One whom you love, One who loves you
    As only God’s son can:
  This is the work for you to do
    To save the creature man.”

  “And men to come will curse your name,
    And hold you up to scorn;
  In all the world will be no shame
    Like yours; this is love’s thorn.
  It takes strong will of heart and soul,
    But man is under ban.
  Think, Judas, can you play this role
    In heaven’s mystic plan?”

  So Judas took the sorry part,
    Went out and spoke the word,
  And gave the kiss that broke his heart,
    But no one knew or heard.
  And no one knew what poison ate
    Into his palm that day,
  Where, bright and damned, the monstrous weight
    Of thirty white coins lay.

  It was not death that Judas found
    Upon a kindly tree;
  The man was dead long ere he bound
    His throat as final fee.
  And who can say if on that day
    When gates of pearl swung wide,
  Christ did not go His honored way
    With Judas by His side?

  I think somewhere a table round
    Owns Jesus as its head,
  And there the saintly twelve are found
    Who followed where He led.
  And Judas sits down with the rest,
    And none shrinks from His hand,
  For there the worst is as the best,
    And there they understand.

  And you may think of Judas, friend,
    As one who broke his word,
  Whose neck came to a bitter end
    For giving up his Lord.
  But I would rather think of him
    As the little Jewish lad
  Who gave young Christ heart, soul, and limb,
    And all the love he had.




_The Wise_

(_For Alain Locke_)


  Dead men are wisest, for they know
  How far the roots of flowers go,
  How long a seed must rot to grow.

  Dead men alone bear frost and rain
  On throbless heart and heatless brain,
  And feel no stir of joy or pain.

  Dead men alone are satiate;
  They sleep and dream and have no weight,
  To curb their rest, of love or hate.

  Strange, men should flee their company,
  Or think me strange who long to be
  Wrapped in their cool immunity.




_Mary, Mother of Christ_


  That night she felt those searching hands
  Grip deep upon her breast,
  She laughed and sang a silly tune
  To lull her babe to rest;

  That night she kissed his coral lips
  How could she know the rest?




_Dialogue_


  Soul: There is no stronger thing than song;
        In sun and rain and leafy trees
        It wafts the timid soul along
        On crested waves of melodies.

  Body: But leaves the body bare to feed
        Its hunger with its very need.

  Soul: Although the frenzied belly writhes,
        Yet render up in song your tithes;
        Song is the weakling’s oaken rod,
        His Jacob’s ladder dropped from God.

  Body: Song is not drink; song is not meat,
        Nor strong, thick shoes for naked feet.

  Soul: Who sings by unseen hands is fed
        With honeyed milk and warm, white bread;
        His ways in pastures green are led,
        And perfumed oil illumes his head;
        His cup with wine is surfeited,
        And when the last low note is read,
        He sings among the lipless dead
        With singing stars to crown his head.

  Body: But will song buy a wooden box
        The length of me from toe to crown,
        To keep me safe from carrion flocks
        When singing’s done and lyre laid down?




_In Memory of Col. Charles Young_


  Along the shore the tall, thin grass
    That fringes that dark river,
  While sinuously soft feet pass,
    Begins to bleed and quiver.

  The great dark voice breaks with a sob
    Across the womb of night;
  Above your grave the tom-toms throb,
    And the hills are weird with light.

  The great dark heart is like a well
    Drained bitter by the sky,
  And all the honeyed lies they tell
    Come there to thirst and die.

  No lie is strong enough to kill
    The roots that work below;
  From your rich dust and slaughtered will
    A tree with tongues will grow.




_To My Friends_


  You feeble few that hold me somewhat more
  Than all I am; base clay and spittle joined
  To shape an aimless whim substantial; coined
  Amiss one idle hour, this heart, though poor,--
  O golden host I count upon the ends
  Of one bare hand, with fingers still to spare,--
  Is rich enough for this: to harbor there
  In opulence its frugal meed of friends.
  Let neither lose his faith, lest by such loss
  Each find insufferable his daily cross.
  And be not less immovable to me,
  Not less love-leal and staunch, than my heart is.
  In brief, these fine heroics come to this,
  My friends: if you are true, I needs must be.




_Gods_


  I fast and pray and go to church,
    And put my penny in,
  But God’s not fooled by such slight tricks,
    And I’m not saved from sin.

  I cannot hide from Him the gods
    That revel in my heart,
  Nor can I find an easy word
    To tell them to depart:

  God’s alabaster turrets gleam
    Too high for me to win,
  Unless He turns His face and lets
    Me bring my own gods in.




_To John Keats, Poet. At Spring Time_[A]

(_For Carl Van Vechten_)


  I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
  There never was a spring like this;
  It is an echo, that repeats
  My last year’s song and next year’s bliss.
  I know, in spite of all men say
  Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
  Yea, even in your grave her way
  Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
  Spring never was so fair and dear
  As Beauty makes her seem this year.

  I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
  I am as helpless in the toil
  Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
  To feel the solid earth recoil
  Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
  Her tocsin call to those who love her,
  And lo! the dogwood petals cover

  Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
  White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
  About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
  While white and purple lilacs muster
  A strength that bears them to a cluster
  Of color and odor; for her sake
  All things that slept are now awake.

  And you and I, shall we lie still,
  John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
  Somehow I feel your sensitive will
  Is pulsing up some tremulous
  Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
  Grow music as they grow, since your
  Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
  For life that opens death’s dark door.
  Though dust, your fingers still can push
  The Vision Splendid to a birth,
  Though now they work as grass in the hush
  Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

  “John Keats is dead,” they say, but I
  Who hear your full insistent cry
  In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
  Know John Keats still writes poetry.
  And while my head is earthward bowed
  To read new life sprung from your shroud,
  Folks seeing me must think it strange
  That merely spring should so derange
  My mind. They do not know that you,
  John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

  [A] Spring, 1924




_On Going_

(_For Willard Johnson_)


  A grave is all too weak a thing
    To hold my fancy long;
  I’ll bear a blossom with the spring,
    Or be a blackbird’s song,

  I think that I shall fade with ease,
    Melt into earth like snow,
  Be food for hungry, growing trees,
    Or help the lilies blow.

  And if my love should lonely walk,
    Quite of my nearness fain,
  I may come back to her, and talk
    In liquid words of rain.




_Harsh World That Lashest Me_

(_For Walter White_)


  Harsh World that lashest me each day,
    Dub me not cowardly because
  I seem to find no sudden way
    To throttle you or clip your claws.
  No force compels me to the wound
    Whereof my body bears the scar;
  Although my feet are on the ground,
    Doubt not my eyes are on a star.

  You cannot keep me captive, World,
    Entrammeled, chained, spit on, and spurned.
  More free than all your flags unfurled,
    I give my body to be burned.
  I mount my cross because I will,
    I drink the hemlock which you give
  For wine which you withhold--and still,
    Because I will not die, I live.

  I live because an ember in
    Me smoulders to regain its fire,
  Because what is and what has been
    Not yet have conquered my desire.
  I live to prove the groping clod
    Is surely more than simple dust;
  I live to see the breath of God
    Beatify the carnal crust.

  But when I will, World, I can go,
    Though triple bronze should wall me round,
  Slip past your guard as swift as snow,
    Translated without pain or sound.
  Within myself is lodged the key
    To that vast room of couches laid
  For those too proud to live and see
    Their dreams of light eclipsed in shade.




_Requiescam_


  _I am for sleeping and forgetting
    All that has gone before;
  I am for lying still and letting
    Who will beat at my door;
  I would my life’s cold sun were setting
    To rise for me no more._




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  An incorrect page number in the Table of Contents has been corrected.