The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Black Christ, & other poems This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Black Christ, & other poems Author: Countee Cullen Illustrator: Charles Cullen Release date: December 11, 2025 [eBook #77442] Language: English Original publication: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1929 Credits: Sean/IB@DP, Terry Jeffress, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK CHRIST, & OTHER POEMS *** _The Black Christ_ & OTHER POEMS _Other Books by_ COUNTEE CULLEN COLOR COPPER SUN THE BALLAD OF THE BROWN GIRL CAROLING DUSK An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets _Harper & Brothers Publishers_ [Illustration] THE BLACK CHRIST & OTHER POEMS _By_ COUNTEE CULLEN _With Decorations by_ CHARLES CULLEN [Illustration: Publisher’s Colophon] Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London mcmxxix _The_ BLACK CHRIST _& Other Poems Copyright 1929, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the U. S. A._ * FIRST EDITION [Illustration] _A Book for Three Friends_ EDWARD ROBERTA HAROLD [Illustration] ¶ Acknowledgment for permission to reprint certain of these poems is made to the following magazines and collections in the pages of which they first appeared: _The Century_ _The New Republic_ _Harper’s Magazine_ _Opportunity_ _The Crisis_ _Tambour_ _Ebony and Topaz_ _The Poetry Folio_ _Palms_ _The Archive_ _Time and Tide_ _The London Observer_ ¶ Grateful appreciation is also conveyed to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation by the aid of whose grant many of these poems were written. _Contents_ I VARIA _To the Three for Whom the Book_ 3 _Tribute_ 9 _That Bright Chimeric Beast_ 10 _At the Etoile_ 12 _Two Epitaphs_ 14 _To an Unknown Poet_ 15 _Little Sonnet to Little Friends_ 16 _Mood_ 17 _Counter Mood_ 18 _The Wind and the Weather_ 19 _In the Midst of Life_ 20 _Minutely Hurt_ 22 _Never the Final Stone_ 23 _Light Lady_ 24 _By Their Fruits_ 25 _A Miracle Demanded_ 26 _Tongue-tied_ 27 _Ultima Verba_ 28 _The Foolish Heart_ 30 _A Wish_ 31 _For Helen Keller_ 32 _Asked and Answered_ 33 _Two Poets_ 34 _Not Sacco and Vanzetti_ 36 _A Song No Gentleman Would Sing to Any Lady_ 37 _Self Criticism_ 38 _A Thorn Forever in the Breast_ 39 _The Proud Heart_ 40 II INTERLUDE _The Simple Truth_ 43 _Therefore, Adieu_ 44 _At a Parting_ 46 _Dictum_ 47 _Revelation_ 48 _Bright Bindings_ 49 _Ghosts_ 50 _Song in Spite of Myself_ 51 _Nothing Endures_ 52 _There Must Be Words_ 53 _One Day I Told My Love_ 54 _Lesson_ 55 _The Street Called Crooked_ 56 _The Law That Changeth Not_ 57 _Valedictory_ 58 III COLOR _To Certain Critics_ 63 _Black Majesty_ 64 _Song of Praise_ 66 _The Black Christ_ 69 [Illustration] _Varia_ [Illustration] _To the Three for Whom the Book_ Once like a lady In a silken dress, The serpent might eddy Through the wilderness, Billow and glow And undulate In a rustling flow Of sinuous hate. Now dull-eyed and leaden, Of having lost His Eden He pays the cost. He shuns the tree That brought him low As grown to be Domestic; no Temptations dapple, From leaf to root, The modern apple Our meekest fruit. Dragon and griffin And basilisk Whose stare could stiffen, And the hot breath whisk From the overbold Braving a gaze So freezing cold, Who sings their praise These latter days? That venemous head On a woman fair,-- Medusa’s dead Of the hissing hair. No beasts are made Meet for the whir Of that sunken blade Excalibur. No smithies forge A shining sword Fit for the gorge Of a beast abhorred. Pale Theseus Would have no need, Were he with us, Of sword or thread; For long has been set The baleful star Of Pasiphaë’s pet, The Minotaur. Though they are dead, Those ancient ones, Each bestial head Dust under tons Of dust, new beasts Have come, their heirs, Claiming their feasts As the old did theirs. Clawless they claw, Fangless they rend; And the stony maw Crams on without end. Still are arrayed (But with brighter eyes) Stripling and maid For the sacrifice. We cannot spare This toll we pay Of the slender, the fair, The bright and the gay! Gold and black crown, Body slim and taut, How they go down ’Neath the juggernaut! Youth of the world, Like scythèd wheat, How they are hurled At the clay god’s feet! Hear them cry Holy To stone and to steel, See them bend lowly, Loyal and leal, Blood rendered and bone, To steel and to stone. They have forgot The stars and the sun, The grassy plot, And waters that run From rock to rock;-- Their only care Is to grasp a lock Of Mammon’s hair. But you three rare Friends whom I love (With rhymes to swear The depths whereof) A book to you three Who have not bent The idolatrous knee, Nor worship lent To modern rites, Knowing full well How a just god smites The infidel; Three to whom Pan Is no mere myth, But a singing Man To be reckoned with;-- Witness him now In the mist and dew; Lean and hear how He carols to you: “Gather as a flower Living to your heart; Let the full shower Rankle and smart; Youth is the coffer Where all is hid; All age may offer Youth can outbid. Blind with your beauty The ranks of scorn, Take for a duty Pleasure; you were born Joy to incur. Ere the eyes are misted With a rheumy blur, Ere the speech is twisted To a throaty slur, Ere the cheeks are haggard; Ere the prick of the spur Finds you lame or laggard, Do not demur! When Time advances Terrible and lone, Recall there were dances Though they be flown. When Death plys the riddle To which all are mute, Remember the fiddle, The lyre and the flute.” To three who will heed His song, nor brook That a god should plead In vain, a book. _Tribute_ (To My Mother) Because man is not virtuous in himself, Nor kind, nor given to sweet charities, Save goaded by the little kindling elf Of some dear face it pleasures him to please; Some men who else were humbled to the dust, Have marveled that the chastening hand should stay, And never dreamed they held their lives in trust To one the victor loved a world away. So I, least noble of a churlish race, Least kind of those by nature rough and crude, Have at the intervention of your face Spared him with whom was my most bitter feud One moment, and the next, a deed more grand, The helpless fly imprisoned in my hand. _That Bright Chimeric Beast_ (For Lynn Riggs) That bright chimeric beast Conceived yet never born, Save in the poet’s breast, The white-flanked unicorn, Never may be shaken From his solitude; Never may be taken In any earthly wood. That bird forever feathered, Of its new self the sire, After aeons weathered, Reincarnate by fire, Falcon may not nor eagle Swerve from his eerie, Nor any crumb inveigle Down to an earthly tree. That fish of the dread regime Invented to become The fable and the dream Of the Lord’s aquarium, Leviathan, the jointed Harpoon was never wrought By which the Lord’s anointed Will suffer to be caught. Bird of the deathless breast, Fish of the frantic fin, That bright chimeric beast Flashing the argent skin,-- If beasts like these you’d harry, Plumb then the poet’s dream; Make it your aviary, Make it your wood and stream. There only shall the swish Be heard, of the regal fish; There like a golden knife Dart the feet of the unicorn, And there, death brought to life, The dead bird be reborn. _At the Etoile_ (At the Unknown Soldier’s Grave in Paris) If in the lists of life he bore him well, Sat gracefully or fell unhorsed in love, No tongue is dowered now with speech to tell Since he and death somewhere matched glove with glove. What proud or humble union gave him birth, Not reckoning on this immortal bed, Is one more riddle that the cryptic earth Though knowing chooses to retain unsaid. Since he was weak as other men,--or like Young Galahad as fair in thought as limb, Each bit of moving dust in France may strike Its breast in pride, knowing he stands for him. [Illustration] _Two Epitaphs_ 1 For the Unknown Soldier (Paris) Unknown but not unhonored rest, Symbol of all Time shall not reap; Not one stilled heart in that torn breast, But a myriad millions sleep. 2 For a Child Still-born Here sleeps a spark that never burned, A seed not granted spring to bloom, A soul whose darkened pathway turned From tomb of flesh to dusty tomb. _To an Unknown Poet_ “Love is enough,” I read somewhere; Lines some poor poet in his pride And poverty wrote on the air To ease his heart, and soothe his bride. Something in me, child of an age Cold to the core, undeified, Warmed to my brother bard, this sage; And I too leaned upon my pride. But pride I found can blind our eyes, And poverty is worse than pride. Love’s breed from both is a nest of lies; And singer of sweet songs, you lied. _Little Sonnet to Little Friends_ Let not the proud of heart condemn Me that I mould my ways to hers, Groping for healing in a hem No wind of passion ever stirs; Nor let them sweetly pity me When I am out of sound and sight; They waste their time and energy; No mares encumber me at night. Always a trifle fond and strange, And some have said a bit bizarre, Say, “Here’s the sun,” I would not change It for my dead and burnt-out star. Shine as it will, I have no doubt Some day the sun, too, may go out. _Mood_ I think an impulse stronger than my mind May some day grasp a knife, unloose a vial, Or with a little leaden ball unbind The cords that tie me to the rank and file. My hands grow quarrelsome with bitterness, And darkly bent upon the final fray; Night with its stars upon a grave seems less Indecent than the too complacent day. God knows I would be kind, let live, speak fair, Requite an honest debt with more than just, And love for Christ’s dear sake these shapes that wear A pride that had its genesis in dust,-- The meek are promised much in a book I know But one grows weary turning cheek to blow. _Counter Mood_ Let this be scattered far and wide, laid low Upon the waters as they fall and rise, Be caught and carried by the winds that blow, Nor let it be arrested by the skies: I who am mortal say I shall not die; I who am dust of this am positive, That though my nights tend toward the grave, yet I Shall on some brighter day arise, and live. Ask me not how I am oracular, Nor whence this arrogant assurance springs. Ask rather Faith the canny conjurer, (Who while your reason mocks him mystifies Winning the grudging plaudits of your eyes)-- How suddenly the supine egg has wings. _The Wind and the Weather_ Forever shall not burn his tongue So glibly after this; Eternity was brief that hung Upon a passing kiss. A year ago no metaphor Was rich enough to trace A single figure boasting more Allurement than her face. One spring from then, small change we find In him; she still is fair. But in the other’s heart or mind Neither glows anywhere. _In the Midst of Life_ Bud bursting from a tomb Of dust, this mortal knows In winter’s sterile womb For your despoiling grows What comes to every rose. Grass so securely green, Sky-climbing corn so tall, Know in your length is seen What overtowers all: The shadow of the fall. Yet blossoms with each spring Reopen; grasses sprout; And jaunty corn stalks fling New skeins of silk about. Nature is skilled to rout Death’s every ambuscade; For man alone is poured The potion once essayed That sharper than a sword Destroys both mouth and gourd. Deplore, lament, bewail; The sword seeks out the sheath; Though all things else may fail, Two things keep faith; this breath A while; and longer death. _Minutely Hurt_ Since I was minutely hurt, Giant griefs and woes Only find me staunchly girt Against all other blows. Once an atom cracks the heart All is done and said; Poison, steel, and fiery dart May then be buffeted. [Illustration] _Never the Final Stone_ Though by the glory of your lady’s face The riots of the sun and moon are quelled, Yet have the hands that fashioned her some grace Whereto perfection was allied, withheld. The perfect wooer never speaks the word The object of his passion most would hear; So does expectance keep her wild feet spurred Toward that which ever is no more than near. And daily from His lonely mountain-top, God sees us rear our Babels on the plain; Then with one stone to go, He lets us drop That we may want and strive for Him again. _Light Lady_ They say when virtue slipped from her, Awakened by her fall, Sin seemed to work a miracle And made her soul grow tall. Here with her penny papers by, We see how well she diced: Nothing to do but munch her gums And sing the love of Christ. And now with alms for what she was Men stroke her ragged fur; When Death comes down this street, his face Will not be strange to her. [Illustration] _By Their Fruits_ I know a lover when I see one, And I can tell the way they fare: If those they dote on shed some sun, Or blow a cool and languid air. Those that are loved, though niggardly, Move with a lively foot and eye; The others drag like men who see Their day and minute set to die. _A Miracle Demanded_ This life is like a tree that flourisheth With fruit and flower, gay leaf and sprouting twig; But pestilence is in the wind’s warm breath, And at the roots the worms and mice grow big. The gardener, steady in his anxious claims, Who prunes for love, he says, and not for wage, Than simple care has more disastrous names, The most elect: Disease, Death, and Old Age. Against such foes how shall a tree prevail To curb its consummation in decay, And like a tree shall men not strive and fail, Unless all wonders have not passed away? Renew an ancient vision, Lord, in me: Open the young man’s eyes that he may see. _Tongue-tied_ You ask me why I love her, and you pause Magnanimous, that I may make reply Handing you deftly parceled every cause, Saying with confidence, “Lo, this is why.” But I am mute as if I had no tongue, Without reason as if I had no mind, This song the most familiar ever sung, Is lost to me like a leaf caught in the wind. And so my tongue is tied; and so you smile Not knowing, little lover that you are, (Prattling, “’Twill wear, ’twill last so long a while”) The poet is compelled to love his star, Not knowing he could never tell you why Though silence makes inadequate reply. _Ultima Verba_ Not being in my coffin, yet I know What suffocations crowd their breath who go Through some mischance alive into the grave; Not having any wound at all to shout Belief to Thomas who must see or doubt, I feel my life blood ebbing wave on wave. And yet this knowledge cannot summon strength To rend apart the life-impaling length Of these strong boards that hold my body down; There is no cloth, no cool and radiant stuff (Save fashioned by your hand) healing enough To staunch this thin red flow in which I drown. I am as one knowing what day he dies, Who looks in vain for mercy into eyes No glints of pity shade, no pardons stir, And thinks, “Although the trap by which I span This world and that another springs, this man Is both my judge and executioner.” _The Foolish Heart_ “Be still, heart, cease those measured strokes; Lie quiet in your hollow bed; This moving frame is but a hoax To make you think you are not dead.” Thus spake I to my body’s slave, With beats still to be answerèd; Poor foolish heart that needs a grave To prove to it that it is dead. [Illustration] _A Wish_ I hope when I have sung my rounds Of song, I shall have strength to slay The wish to chirp on any grounds, Content that silence hold her sway, My tongue not rolling futile sounds After my heart has had its say. _For Helen Keller_ Against our puny sound and sight In vain the bells of Heaven ring, The Mystic Blossoms red and white May not intrigue our visioning. For lest we handle, lest we touch, Lest carnally our minds condone, Our clumsy credence may not clutch The under or the overtone. Her finer alchemy converts The clanging brass to golden-pealed, And for her sight the black earth spurts Hues never thought there unrevealed. _Asked and Answered_ How have I found this favor in your sight, And will the flame burn steady to the end, Until we pass that dark and dangerous bend Where there is such a crying need for light; Or will it flare up now, flame-clear and bright, Sun-like its wealth so far and wide distend That nothing will remain for us to spend When toll is taken of the dismal night? Why should I harrow up my mind like this To tarnish with a doubt each golden kiss? This is the Day most certainly. This bars Us now from any hidden darkness spun. Sufficient to the day let be the sun, And to the night the spear-points of the stars. _Two Poets_ 1 “The love-mad lark you sing of swooned,” they said, “And speared his bosom on a thorn of last Year’s rose; cease playing Orpheus; no blast You blow can raise Eurydice once dead. Our ears are cloyed with songs our fathers heard Of how your lady’s face and form were fair; Put by your fluting; swell a martial air, And spur us on with some prophetic word.” So, wearying, he changed his tune, and won The praise of little men (who needed none) ... But oh to see him smile as when dawn blew A trumpet only he could hear, and dew He could not brush away besieged his eyes At sight of gulls departing from his skies. 2 “How could a woman love him; love, or wed?” And thinking only of his tuneless face And arms that held no hint of skill or grace, They shook a slow, commiserative head To see him amble by; but still they fed Their wilting hearts on his, were fired to race Once more, and panting at life’s deadly pace, They drank as wine the blood-in-song he shed. Yet in the dream-walled room where last he lay, Soft garments gathered dust all night and day, As women whom he loved and sang of came To smooth his brow and wail a secret name. A rose placed in his hand by Guinevere Was drenched with Magdalen’s eternal tear. _Not Sacco and Vanzetti_ These men who do not die, but send to death, These iron men whom mercy cannot bend Beyond the lettered law; what when their breath Shall suddenly and naturally end? What shall their final retribution be, What bloody silver then shall pay the tolls Exacted for this legal infamy When death indicts their stark immortal souls? The day a slumbering but awful God, Before Time to Eternity is blown, Examines with the same unyielding rod These images of His with hearts of stone, These men who do not die, but death decree,-- These are the men I should not care to be. _A Song No Gentleman Would Sing to Any Lady_ There were some things I might not know Had you not pedagogued me so; And these I thank you for; Now never shall a piquant face Cause my tutored heart a trace Of anguish any more. Before your pleasure made me wise A simulacrum of disguise Masked the serpent and the dove; That I discern now hiss from coo, My heart’s full gratitude to you, Lady I had learned to love. Before I knew love well I sang Many a polished pain and pang With proper bardic zeal; But now I know hearts do not break So easily, and though a snake Has made them, wounds may heal. _Self Criticism_ Shall I go all my bright days singing, (A little pallid, a trifle wan) The failing note still vainly clinging To the throat of the stricken swan? Shall I never feel and meet the urge To bugle out beyond my sense That the fittest song of earth is a dirge, And only fools trust Providence? Than this better the reed never turned flute, Better than this no song, Better a stony silence, better a mute Mouth and a cloven tongue. _A Thorn Forever in the Breast_ A hungry cancer will not let him rest Whose heart is loyal to the least of dreams; There is a thorn forever in his breast Who cannot take his world for what it seems; Aloof and lonely must he ever walk, Plying a strange and unaccustomed tongue, An alien to the daily round of talk, Mute when the sordid songs of earth are sung. This is the certain end his dream achieves: He sweats his blood and prayers while others sleep, And shoulders his own coffin up a steep Immortal mountain, there to meet his doom Between two wretched dying men, of whom One doubts, and one for pity’s sake believes. _The Proud Heart_ That lively organ, palpitant and red, Enrubied in the staid and sober breast, Telling the living man, “You are not dead Until this hammered anvil takes its rest,” My life’s timepiece wound to alarm some day The body to its need of box and shroud, Was meant till then to beat one haughty way; A crimson stroke should be no less than proud. Yet this high citadel has come to grief, Been broken as an arrow drops its bird, Splintered as many ways as veins in a leaf At a woman’s laugh or a man’s harsh word; But being proud still strikes its hours in pain; The dead man lives, and none perceives him slain. _Interlude_ [Illustration] _The Simple Truth_ I know of all the words I speak or write, Precious and woven of a vibrant sound, None ever snares your faith, intrigues you quite, Or sends you soaring from the solid ground. You are the level-headed lover who Can match my fever while the kisses last, But you are never shaken through and through; Your roots are firm after the storm has passed. I shall know nights of tossing in my sleep Fondling a hollow where a head should lie; But you a calm review, no tears to weep, No wounds to dress, no futile breaths to sigh. Ever this was the way of wind with flame: To harry it, then leave swift as it came. _Therefore, Adieu_ Now you are gone, and with your unreturning goes All I had thought in spite of you would stay; Now draws forever to its unawakening close The beauty of the bright bandanna’d day. Now sift in ombrous flakes and revolutions slow My dreams descending from my heady sky. The balm I kept to cool my grief in (leaves of snow) Now melts, with your departure flowing by. I knew, indeed, the straight unswerving track the sun Took to your face (as other ecstasies) Yet I had thought some faith to me in them; they run From me to you as fly to honey, bees. Avid, to leave me neither fevered joy nor ache, Only of soul and body vast unrest. Sun, moon, and stars should be enough; why must you take The feeling of the heart out of the breast? Now I who dreamed before I died to shoot one shaft Of courage from a warped and crooked bow, Stand utterly forsaken, stripped of that small craft I had, watching with you all prowess go. _At a Parting_ Let us not turn for this aside to die, Crying a lover may not be a friend. Our grief is vast enough without that lie; All stories may not boast a happy end. Love was a flower, sweet, and flowers fade; Love was a fairy tale; these have their close. The endless chronicle was never made, Nor, save in dreams, the ever-scented rose. Seeing them dim in passion’s diadem, Our rubies that were bright that now are dull, Let them not fade without their requiem, How they were red one time and beautiful, And how the heart where once a ruby bled May live, yet bear that mark till it is dead. _Dictum_ Yea, I have put thee from me utterly, And they who plead thy cause do plead in vain; Window and door are bolted, never key From any ore shall cozen them again. This is my regal justice: banishment, That those who please me now may read and see How self-sustained I am, with what content I thrive alike on love or treachery. God, Thou hast Christ, they say, at Thy right hand; Close by Thy left Michael is straight and leal; Around Thy throne the chanting elders stand, And on the earth Thy feudal millions kneel. Criest Thou never, Lord, above their song: “But Lucifer was tall, his wings were long?” _Revelation_ Pity me, I said; But you cried, Pity you; And suddenly I saw Higher than my own grief grew. I saw a tree of woe so tall, So deeply boughed with grief, That matched with it my bitter plant Was dwarfed into a leaf. [Illustration] _Bright Bindings_ Your love to me was like an unread book, Bright-backed, with smooth white pages yet unslit; Fondly as a lover, foolishly, I took It from its shelf one day and opened it. Here shall I read, I thought, beauty and grace, The soul’s most high and awful poetry:-- Alas for lovers and the faith they place In love, alas for you, alas for me. I have but read a page or two at most, The most my horror-blinded eyes may read. I find here but a windy tapering ghost Where I sought flesh gifted to ache and bleed. Yet back you go, though counterfeit you be. I love bright books even when they fail me. _Ghosts_ Breast under breast when you shall lie With him who in my place Bends over you with flashing eye And ever nearing face; Hand fast in hand when you shall tread With him the springing ways Of love from me inherited After my little phase; Be not surprised if suddenly The couch or air confound Your ravished ears upbraidingly, And silence turn to sound. But never let it trouble you, Or cost you one caress; Ghosts are soon sent with a word or two Back to their loneliness. _Song in Spite of Myself_ Never love with all your heart, It only ends in aching; And bit by bit to the smallest part That organ will be breaking. Never love with all your mind, It only ends in fretting; In musing on sweet joys behind, Too poignant for forgetting. Never love with all your soul, For such there is no ending, Though a mind that frets may find control, And a shattered heart find mending. Give but a grain of the heart’s rich seed, Confine some under cover, And when love goes, bid him God-speed, And find another lover. _Nothing Endures_ Nothing endures, Not even love, Though the warm heart purrs Of the length thereof. Though beauty wax, Yet shall it wane; Time lays a tax On the subtlest brain. Let the blood riot, Give it its will; It shall grow quiet, It shall grow still. Nirvana gapes For all things given; Nothing escapes, Love not even. _There Must Be Words_ This wound will be effaced as others have, This scar recede into oblivion, Leaving the skin immaculate and suave, With none to guess the thing they gaze upon. After a decent show of mourning I, As once I ever was, shall be as free To look on love with calm unfaltering eye, And marvel that such fools as lovers be. These are brave words from one who like a child Cuts dazzling arabesques on summer ice That, kissed by sun, begins to crack and thaw; The old assurance dies, only the wild Desire to live goes on; any device Compels its frantic grasp, even a straw. _One Day I Told My Love_ One day I told my love my heart, Disclosed it out and in; I let her read the ill-writ chart Small with virtue, big with sin. I took it from the hidden socket Where it was wont to grieve; “I’ll turn it,” I said, “into a locket, Or a bright band for your sleeve.” I let her hold the naked thing No one had seen before; And had she willed, her hand might wring It dry and drop it to the floor. It was a gentle thing she did, The wisest and the best; “The proper place for a heart,” she said, “Is back in the sheltering breast.” _Lesson_ I lay in silence at her side, My heart’s and spirit’s choice; For we had said harsh things and cried On love in a bitter voice. We lay and watched two points in space, Pricked in heaven, faint and far. They seemed so near, but who could trace That width between star and star? We lay and watched, and suddenly There was a streak of light, And where were two, the eye might see But one star in the night. My hand stole out, her hand crept near, Grief was a splintered spar; Two fused in one there, did you hear Us claiming kinship, star? [Illustration] _The Street Called Crooked_ (Le Havre, August 1928) “_Bon soir, monsieur_,” they called to me; And, “_Venez voir nos femmes._” “_Bon soir, mesdames_,” they got from me, And, “_J’ai une meilleure dame._” “To meet strange lips and foreign eyes I did not cross the foam, I have a dearer, fairer prize Who waits for me at home.” “Her eyes are browner, lips more red Than any lady’s light; ’Twould grieve her heart and droop her head If I failed her tonight.” “_Bon soir, mesdames; que Dieu vous garde_; And catch this coin I throw; The ways of life are bleak and hard, Ladies, I think you know.” A bright and crooked street it gleamed With light and laughter filled; All night the warm wine frothed and streamed While souls were stripped and killed. _The Law That Changeth Not_ Stern legislation of a Persian hand Upon my heart, Love, strict Medean writ, Must till the end of time and me command Obeisance from him who fostered it. All other codes may hide their littlest flaw Toward which the hopeful prisoner may kneel; I come of those who once they write a law Do barricade themselves against appeal. So stand I now condemned by mine own tort; Extenuations? There is none to plead. I am my own most ultimate resort; There is no pardon for the stricken Mede. I turn to go, half valiant, half absurd, To perish on a promise, die on a word. _Valedictory_ No word upon the boarded page That once in praise I spoke, Would I in bitterness and rage, Had I the power, revoke. Take them and bind them to your heart, With ribbon or with rue. An end arrives to all we start; I write no more of you. Go then, adhere to the vows you make Out of a haughty heart; No more to tremble for my sake Nor writhe beneath the smart Of hearing on an alien tongue Tolled lightly and in play, The bell by which our lives were rung, The bell we break today. Love ever was the brightest dream My pen might seize upon; Think not I shall renounce the theme Now that the dream is done. We are put by, but not the Bow, The Arrows, and the Dove. Though you and I go down, still glow The armaments of love. The essence shines devoid of form, Passion plucked of its sting, The Holy Rose that hides no worm, The Everlasting Thing. Though loud I cry on Venus’ name To heal me and subdue The rising tide, the raging flame, I write no more of you. Rare was the poem we began (We called it that!) to live, And for a while the measures ran With all the heart could give. But, oh, the golden vein was thin, Early the dark cock crew; The heart cried out (love’s muezzin): I write no more of you. _Color_ _To Certain Critics_ Then call me traitor if you must, Shout treason and default! Say I betray a sacred trust Aching beyond this vault. I’ll bear your censure as your praise, For never shall the clan Confine my singing to its ways Beyond the ways of man. No racial option narrows grief, Pain is no patriot, And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf For all as lief as not. With blind sheep groping every hill, Searching an oriflamme, How shall the shepherd heart then thrill To only the darker lamb? _Black Majesty_ (After reading John W. Vandercook’s chronicle of sable glory) These men were kings, albeit they were black, Christophe and Dessalines and L’Ouverture; Their majesty has made me turn my back Upon a plaint I once shaped to endure. These men were black, I say, but they were crowned And purple-clad, however brief their time. Stifle your agony; let grief be drowned; We know joy had a day once and a clime. Dark gutter-snipe, black sprawler-in-the-mud, A thing men did a man may do again. What answer filters through your sluggish blood To these dark ghosts who knew so bright a reign? “Lo, I am dark, but comely,” Sheba sings. “And we were black,” three shades reply, “but kings.” [Illustration] _Song of Praise_ Who lies with his milk-white maiden, Bound in the length of her pale gold hair, Cooled by her lips with the cold kiss laden, He lies, but he loves not there. Who lies with his nut-brown maiden, Bruised to the bone by her sin-black hair, Warmed with the wine that her full lips trade in, He lies, and his love lies there. [Illustration] _The Black Christ_ (_Hopefully dedicated to White America_) _The Black Christ_ 1 God’s glory and my country’s shame, And how one man who cursed Christ’s name May never fully expiate That crime till at the Blessed Gate Of Heaven He meet and pardon me Out of His love and charity; How God, who needs no man’s applause, For love of my stark soul, of flaws Composed, seeing it slip, did stoop Down to the mire and pick me up, And in the hollow of His hand Enact again at my command The world’s supremest tragedy, Until I die my burthen be; How Calvary in Palestine, Extending down to me and mine, Was but the first leaf in a line Of trees on which a Man should swing World without end, in suffering For all men’s healing, let me sing. O world grown indolent and crass, I stand upon your bleak morass Of incredulity and cry Your lack of faith is but a lie. If you but brushed the scales apart That cloud your eyes and clinch your heart There is no telling what grace might Be leveled to your clearer sight; Nor what stupendous choir break Upon your soul till you should ache (If you but let your fingers veer, And raised to heaven a listening ear) In utter pain in every limb To know and sing as they that hymn. If men would set their lips to prayer With that delight with which they swear, Heaven and earth as bow and string, Would meet, would be attuned and sing. We are diseased, trunk, branch, and shoot; A sickness gathers at the root Of us. We flaunt a gaudy fruit But maggots wrangle at the core. We cry for angels; yet wherefore, Who raise no Jacobs any more?... No men with eyes quick to perceive The Shining Thing, clutch at its sleeve, Against the strength of Heaven try The valiant force of men who die;-- With heaving heart where courage sings Strive with a mist of Light and Wings, And wrestle all night long, though pressed Be rib to rib and back to breast, Till in the end the lofty guest Pant, “Conquering human, be thou blest.” As once they stood white-plumed and still, All unobserved on Dothan’s hill, Now, too, the angels, stride for stride, Would march with us, but are denied. Did we but let our credence sprout As we do mockery and doubt, Lord Christ Himself would stand revealed In every barren, frosty field That we misname the heart. Belief In something more than pain and grief, In only earth’s most commonplace, Might yet illumine every face Of wretchedness, every blinded eye, If from the hermitage where nigh These thousand years the world of men Has hemmed her in, might come again With gracious eyes and gentle breath The still unconquered Lady, Faith. _Two brothers have I had on earth, One of spirit, one of sod; My mother suckled one at birth, One was the Son of God._ Since that befell which came to me, Since I was singled out to be, Upon a wheel of mockery, The pattern of a new faith spun; I never doubt that once the sun For respite stopped in Gibeon, Or that a Man I could not know Two thousand ageless years ago, To shape my profit by His loss, Bought my redemption on a cross. 2 “Now spring that heals the wounds of earth Is being born; and in her birth The wounds of men may find a cure. By such a thought I may endure, And of some things be no less sure. This is a cruel land, this South, And bitter words to twist my mouth, Burning my tongue down to its root, Were easily found; but I am mute Before the wonder of this thing: That God should send so pure a spring, Such grass to grow, such birds to sing, And such small trees bravely to sprout With timid leaves first coming out. A land spring yearly levies on Is gifted with God’s benison. The very odor of the loam Fetters me here to this, my home. The whitest lady in the town Yonder trailing a silken gown Is less kin to this dirt than I. Rich mistresses with proud heads high This dirt and I are one to them; They flick us both from the bordered hem Of lovely garments we supply; But I and the dirt see just as high As any lady cantering by. Why should I cut this bond, my son, This tie too taut to be undone? This ground and I are we not one? Has it not birthed and grown and fed me: Yea, if you will, and also bled me? That little patch of wizened corn Aching and straining to be born, May render back at some small rate The blood and bone of me it ate. The weevil there that rends apart My cotton also tears my heart. Here too, your father, lean and black, Paid court to me with all the knack Of any dandy in the town, And here were born, and here have grown, His sons and mine, as lean and black. What ghosts there are in this old shack Of births and deaths, soft times and hard! I count it little being barred From those who undervalue me. I have my own soul’s ecstasy. Men may not bind the summer sea, Nor set a limit to the stars; The sun seeps through all iron bars; The moon is ever manifest. These things my heart always possessed. And more than this (and here’s the crown) No man, my son, can batter down The star-flung ramparts of the mind. So much for flesh; I am resigned, Whom God has made shall He not guide?” [Illustration] So spake my mother, and her pride For one small minute in its tide Bore all my bitterness away. I saw the thin bent form, the gray Hair shadowed in the candlelight, The eyes fast parting with their sight, The rough, brown fingers, lean with toil, Marking her kinship to the soil. Year crowding year, after the death Of that one man whose last drawn breath Had been the gasping of her name, She had wrought on, lit with some flame Her children sensed, but could not see, And with a patient wizardry Wheedled her stubborn bit of land To yield beneath her coaxing hand, And sometimes in a lavish hour To blossom even with a flower. Time after time her eyes grew dim Watching a life pay for the whim Some master of the land must feed To keep her people down. The seed They planted in her children’s breasts Of hatred toward these men like beasts She weeded out with legends how Once there had been somewhere as now A people harried, low in the dust; But such had been their utter trust In Heaven and its field of stars That they had broken down their bars, And walked across a parted sea Praising His name who set them free. I think more than the tales she told, The music in her voice, the gold And mellow notes she wrought, Made us forbear to voice the thought Low-buried underneath our love, That we saw things she knew not of. We had no scales upon our eyes; God, if He was, kept to His skies, And left us to our enemies. Often at night fresh from our knees And sorely doubted litanies We grappled for the mysteries: “We never seem to reach nowhere,” Jim with a puzzled, questioning air, Would kick the covers back and stare For me the elder to explain. As like as not, my sole refrain Would be, “A man was lynched last night.” “Why?” Jim would ask, his eyes star-bright. “A white man struck him; he showed fight. Maybe God thinks such things are right.” “Maybe God never thinks at all-- Of us,” and Jim would clench his small, Hard fingers tight into a ball. “Likely there ain’t no God at all,” Jim was the first to clothe a doubt With words, that long had tried to sprout Against our wills and love of one Whose faith was like a blazing sun Set in a dark, rebellious sky. Now then the roots were fast, and I Must nurture them in her despite. God could not be, if He deemed right, The grief that ever met our sight. Jim grew; a brooder, silent, sheathed; But pride was in the air he breathed; Inside you knew an Ætna seethed. Often when some new holocaust Had come to undermine and blast The life of some poor wretch we knew, His bones would show like white scars through His fists in anger’s futile way. “I have a fear,” he used to say, “This thing may come to me some day. Some man contemptuous of my race And its lost rights in this hard place, Will strike me down for being black. But when I answer I’ll pay back The late revenge long overdue A thousand of my kind and hue. A thousand black men, long since gone Will guide my hand, stiffen the brawn, And speed one life-divesting blow Into some granite face of snow. And I may swing, but not before I send some pale ambassador Hot footing it to hell to say A proud black man is on his way.” When such hot venom curled his lips And anger snapped like sudden whips Of lightning in his eyes, her words,-- Slow, gentle as the fall of birds That having strained to win aloft Spread out their wings and slowly waft Regretfully back to the earth,-- Would challenge him to name the worth Contained in any seed of hate. Ever the same soft words would mate Upon her lips: love, trust, and wait. But he, young, quick, and passionate, Could not so readily conceal, Deeper than acid-burns, or steel Inflicted wounds, his vital hurt; So still the bitter phrase would spurt: “The things I’ve seen, the things I see, Show what my neighbor thinks of me. The world is large enough for two Men any time, of any hue. I give pale men a wide berth ever; Best not to meet them, for I never Could bend my spirit, never truckle To them; my blood’s too hot to knuckle.” And true; the neighbors spoke of him As that proud nigger, handsome Jim. It was a grudging compliment, Half paid in jest, half fair intent, By those whose partial, jaundiced eye Saw each of us as one more fly, Or one more bug the summer brings, All shaped alike; antennæ, wings, And noxious all; if caught, to die. But Jim was not just one more fly, For he was handsome in a way Night is after a long, hot day. If blood flows on from heart to heart, And strong men leave their counterpart In vice and virtue in their seed, Jim’s bearing spoke his imperial breed. I was an offshoot, crude, inclined More to the earth; he was the kind Whose every graceful movement said, As blood must say, by turn of head, By twist of wrist, and glance of eye, “Good blood flows here, and it runs high.” He had an ease of limb, a raw, Clean, hilly stride that women saw With quickened throbbings of the breast. There was a show of wings; the nest Was too confined; Jim needed space To loop and dip and interlace; For he had passed the stripling stage, And stood a man, ripe for the wage A man extorts of life; his gage Was down. The beauty of the year Was on him now, and somewhere near By in the woods, as like as not, His cares were laid away, forgot In hearty wonderment and praise Of one of spring’s all perfect days. [Illustration] But in my heart a shadow walked At beauty’s side; a terror stalked For prey this loveliness of time. A curse lay on this land and clime. For all my mother’s love of it, Prosperity could not be writ In any book of destiny For this most red epitome Of man’s consistent cruelty To man. Corruption, blight, and rust Were its reward, and canker must Set in. There were too many ghosts Upon its lanes, too many hosts Of dangling bodies in the wind, Too many voices, choked and thinned, Beseeching mercy on its air. And like the sea set in my ear Ever there surged the steady fear Lest this same end and brutal fate March toward my proud, importunate Young brother. Often he’d say, “’Twere best, I think, we moved away.” But custom and an unseen hand Compelled allegiance to this land In her, and she by staying nailed Us there, by love securely jailed. But love and fear must end their bout, And one or both be counted out. Rebellion barked now like a gun; Like a split dam, this faith in one Who in my sight had never done One extraordinary thing That I should praise his name, or sing His bounty and his grace, let loose The pent-up torrent of abuse That clamored in me for release: “Nay, I have done with deities Who keep me ever on my knees, My mouth forever in a tune Of praise, yet never grant the boon Of what I pray for night and day. God is a toy; put Him away. Or make you one of wood or stone That you can call your very own, A thing to feel and touch and stroke, Who does not break you with a yoke Of iron that he whispers soft; Nor promise you fine things aloft While back and belly here go bare, While His own image walks so spare And finds this life so hard to live You doubt that He has aught to give. Better an idol shaped of clay Near you, than one so far away. Although it may not heed your labors, At least it will not mind your neighbors’. ‘In His own time, He will unfold You milk and honey, streets of gold, High walls of jasper ...’ phrases rolled Upon the tongues of idiots. What profit _then_, if hunger gluts Us _now_? Better my God should be This moving, breathing frame of me, Strong hands and feet, live heart and eyes; And when these cease, say then God dies. Your God is somewhere worlds away Hunting a star He shot astray; Oh, He has weightier things to do Than lavish time on me and you. What thought has He of us, three motes Of breath, three scattered notes In His grand symphony, the world? Once we were blown, once we were hurled In place, we were as soon forgot. He might not linger on one dot When there were bars and staves to fling About, for waiting stars to sing. When Rome was a suckling, when Greece was young, Then there were Gods fit to be sung, Who paid the loyal devotee For service rendered zealously, In coin a man might feel and spend, Not marked ‘Deferred to Journey’s End.’ The servant then was worth his hire; He went unscathed through flood and fire; Gods were a thing then to admire. ‘Bow down and worship us,’ they said. ‘You shall be clothed, be housed and fed, While yet you live, not when you’re dead. Strong are our arms where yours are weak. On them that harm you will we wreak The vengeance of a God though they Were Gods like us in every way. Not merely is an honor laid On those we touch with our accolade; We strike for you with that same blade!’” My mother shook a weary head-- “Visions are not for all,” she said, “There were no risings from the dead, No frightened quiverings of earth To mark my spirit’s latter birth. The light that on Damascus’ road Blinded a scoffer never glowed For me. I had no need to view His side, or pass my fingers through Christ’s wounds. It breaks like that on some, And yet it can as surely come Without the lightning and the rain. Some who must have their hurricane Go stumbling through it for a light They never find. Only the night Of doubt is opened to their sight. They weigh and measure, search, define,-- But he who seeks a thing divine Must humbly lay his lore aside, And like a child believe; confide In Him whose ways are deep and dark, And in the end perhaps the spark He sought will be revealed. Perchance Some things are hard to countenance, And others difficult to probe; But shall the mind that grew this globe, And out of chaos thought a world, To us be totally unfurled? And all we fail to comprehend, Shall such a mind be asked to bend Down to, unravel, and untwine? If those who highest hold His sign, Who praise Him most with loudest tongue Are granted no high place among The crowd, shall we be bitter then? The puzzle shall grow simple when The soul discards the ways of dust. There is no gain in doubt; but trust Is our one magic wand. Through it We and eternity are knit, Death made a myth, and darkness lit. The slave can meet the monarch’s gaze With equal pride, dreaming to days When slave and monarch both shall be, Transmuted everlastingly, A single reed blown on to sing The glory of the only King.” We had not, in the stealthy gloom Of deepening night, that shot our room With queerly capering shadows through, Noticed the form that wavered to And fro on weak, unsteady feet Within the door; I turned to greet Spring’s gayest cavalier, but Jim Who stood there balanced in the dim Half-light waved me away from him. And then I saw how terror streaked His eyes, and how a red flow leaked And slid from cheek to chin. His hand Still grasped a knotted branch, and spanned It fiercely, fondling it. At last He moved into the light, and cast His eyes about, as if to wrap In one soft glance, before the trap Was sprung, all he saw mirrored there: All love and bounty; grace; all fair, All discontented days; sweet weather; Rain-slant, snow-fall; all things together Which any man about to die Might ask to have filmed on his eye, And then he bowed his haughty head, “The thing we feared has come,” he said; “But put your ear down to the ground, And you may hear the deadly sound Of two-limbed dogs that bay for me. If any ask in time to be Why I was parted from my breath, Here is your tale: I went to death Because a man murdered the spring. Tell them though they dispute this thing, This is the song that dead men sing: One spark of spirit God head gave To all alike, to sire and slave, From earth’s red core to each white pole, This one identity of soul; That when the pipes of beauty play, The feet must dance, the limbs must sway, And even the heart with grief turned lead, Beauty shall lift like a leaf wind-sped, Shall swoop upon in gentle might, Shall toss and tease and leave so light That never again shall grief or care Find long or willing lodgement there. Tell them each law and rule they make Mankind shall disregard and break (If this must be) for beauty’s sake. Tell them what pranks the spring can play; The young colt leaps, the cat that lay In a sullen ball all winter long Breaks like a kettle into song; Waving it high like a limber flail, The kitten worries his own brief tail; While man and dog sniff the wind alike, For the new smell hurts them like a spike Of steel thrust quickly through the breast; Earth heaves and groans with a sharp unrest. [Illustration] The poet, though he sang of death, Finds tunes for music in simple breath; Even the old, the sleepy-eyed, Are stirred to movement by the tide. But oh, the young, the aging young, Spring is a sweetmeat to our tongue; Spring is the pean; we the choir; Spring is the fuel; we the fire. Tell them spring’s feathery weight will jar, Though it were iron, any bar Upreared by men to keep apart Two who when probed down to the heart Speak each a common tongue. Tell them Two met, each stooping to the hem Of beauty passing by. Such awe Grew on them hate began to thaw And fear and dread to melt and run Like ice laid siege to by the sun. Say for a moment’s misty space These had forgotten hue and race; Spring blew too loud and green a blast For them to think on rank and caste. The homage they both understood, (Taught on a bloody Christless rood) Due from his dark to her brighter blood, In such an hour, at such a time, When all their world was one clear rhyme, He could not give, nor she exact. This only was a glowing fact: Spring in a green and golden gown, And feathered feet, had come to town; Spring in a rich habiliment That shook the breath and woke the spent And sleepy pulse to a dervish beat, Spring had the world again at her feet. Spring was a lady fair and rich, And they were fired with the season’s itch To hold her train or stroke her hair And tell her shyly they found her fair. Spring was a voice so high and clear It broke their hearts as they leaned to hear In stream and grass and soft bird’s-wing; Spring was in them and they were spring. Then say, a smudge across the day, A bit of crass and filthy clay, A blot of ink upon a white Page in a book of gold; a tight Curled worm hid in the festive rose, A mind so foul it hurt your nose, Came one of earth’s serene elect, His righteous being warped and flecked With what his thoughts were: stench and smut.... I had gone on unheeding but He struck me down, he called her slut, And black man’s mistress, bawdy whore, And such like names, and many more,-- (Christ, what has spring to answer for!) I had gone on, I had been wise, Knowing my value in those eyes That seared me through and out and in, Finding a thing to taunt and grin At in my hair and hue. My right I knew could not outweigh his might Who had the law for satellite-- Only I turned to look at her, The early spring’s first worshiper, (Spring, what have you to answer for?) The blood had fled from either cheek And from her lips; she could not speak, But she could only stand and stare And let her pain stab through the air. I think a blow to heart or head Had hurt her less than what he said. A blow can be so quick and kind, But words will feast upon the mind And gnaw the heart down to a shred, And leave you living, yet leave you dead. If he had only tortured me, I could have borne it valiantly. The things he said in littleness Were cheap, the blow he dealt me less, Only they totalled more; he gagged And bound a spirit there; he dragged A sunlit gown of gold and green,-- (The season’s first, first to be seen) And feathered feet, and a plumèd hat,-- (First of the year to be wondered at) Through muck and mire, and by the hair He caught a lady rich and fair. His vile and puny fingers churned Our world about that sang and burned A while as never world before. He had unlatched an icy door, And let the winter in once more. To kill a man is a woeful thing, But he who lays a hand on spring, Clutches the first bird by its throat And throttles it in the midst of a note; Whose breath upon the leaf-proud tree Turns all that wealth to penury; Whose touch upon the first shy flower Gives it a blight before its hour; Whose craven face above a pool That otherwise were clear and cool, Transforms that running silver dream Into a hot and sluggish stream Thus better fit to countenance His own corrupt unhealthy glance, Of all men is most infamous; His deed is rank and blasphemous. The erstwhile warm, the short time sweet, Spring now lay frozen at our feet. Say then, why say nothing more Except I had to close the door; And this man’s leer loomed in the way. The air began to sting; then say There was this branch; I struck; he fell; There’s holiday, I think, in hell.” [Illustration] Outside the night began to groan As heavy feet crushed twig and stone Beating a pathway to our door; A thin noise first, and then a roar More animal than human grew Upon the air until we knew No mercy could be in the sound. “Quick, hide,” I said. I glanced around; But no abyss gaped in the ground. But in the eyes of fear a twig Will seem a tree, a straw as big To him who drowns as any raft. So being mad, being quite daft, I shoved him in a closet set Against the wall. This would but let Him breathe two minutes more, or three, Before they dragged him out to be Queer fruit upon some outraged tree. Our room was in a moment lit With flaring brands; men crowded it-- Old men whose eyes were better sealed In sleep; strong men with muscles steeled Like rods, whose place was in the field; Striplings like Jim with just a touch Of down upon the chin; for such More fitting a secluded hedge To lie beneath with one to pledge In youth’s hot words, immortal love. These things they were not thinking of; “Lynch him! Lynch him!” O savage cry, Why should you echo, “Crucify!” One sought, sleek-tongued, to pacify Them with slow talk of trial, law, Established court; the dripping maw Would not be wheedled from its prey. Out of the past I heard him say, “So be it then; have then your way; But not by me shall blood be spilt; I wash my hands clean of this guilt.” This was an echo of a phrase Uttered how many million days Gone by? Water may cleanse the hands But what shall scour the soul that stands Accused in heaven’s sight? “The Kid.” One cried, “Where is the bastard hid?” “He is not here.” It was a faint And futile lie. “The hell he ain’t; We tracked him here. Show us the place, Or else....” He made an ugly face, Raising a heavy club to smite. I had been felled, had not the sight Of all been otherwise arraigned. Each with bewilderment unfeigned Stared hard to see against the wall The hunted boy stand slim and tall; Dream-born, it seemed, with just a trace Of weariness upon his face, He stood as if evolved from air; As if always he had stood there.... What blew the torches’ feeble flare To such a soaring fury now? Each hand went up to fend each brow, Save his; he and the light were one, A man by night clad with the sun. By form and feature, bearing, name, I knew this man. He was the same Whom I had thrust, a minute past, Behind a door,--and made it fast. Knit flesh and bone, had like a thong, Bound us as one our whole life long, But in the presence of this throng, He seemed one I had never known. Never such tragic beauty shone As this on any face before. It pared the heart straight to the core. It is the lustre dying lends, I thought, to make some brief amends To life so wantonly cut down. The air about him shaped a crown Of light, or so it seemed to me, And sweeter than the melody Of leaves in rain, and far more sad, His voice descended on the mad, Blood-sniffing crowd that sought his life, A voice where grief cut like a knife: “I am he whom you seek, he whom You will not spare his daily doom. My march is ever to the tomb, But let the innocent go free; This man and woman, let them be, Who loving much have succored me.” And then he turned about to speak To me whose heart was fit to break, “My brother, when this wound has healed, And you reap in some other field Roses, and all a spring can yield; Brother (to call me so!) then prove Out of your charity and love That I was not unduly slain, That this my death was not in vain. For no life should go to the tomb Unless from it a new life bloom, A greater faith, a clearer sight, A wiser groping for the light.” He moved to where our mother stood, Dry-eyed, though grief was at its flood, “Mother, not poorer losing one, Look now upon your dying son.” Her own life trembling on the brim, She raised woe-ravaged eyes to him, And in their glances something grew And spread, till healing fluttered through Her pain, a vision so complete It sent her humbly to his feet With what I deemed a curious cry, “And must this be for such as I?” Even his captors seemed to feel Disquietude, an unrest steal Upon their ardor, dampening it, Till one less fearful varlet hit Him across the mouth a heavy blow, Drawing a thin, yet steady flow Of red to drip a dirge of slow Finality upon my heart. The end came fast. Given the start One hound must always give the pack That fears the meekest prey whose back Is desperate against a wall, They charged. I saw him stagger, fall Beneath a mill of hands, feet, staves. And I like one who sees huge waves In hunger rise above the skiff At sea, yet watching from a cliff Far off can lend no feeblest aid, No more than can a fragile blade Of grass in some far distant land, That has no heart to wrench, nor hand To stretch in vain, could only stand With streaming eyes and watch the play. There grew a tree a little way Off from the hut, a virgin tree Awaiting its fecundity. _O Tree was ever worthier Groom Led to a bride of such rare bloom? Did ever fiercer hands enlace Love and Beloved in an embrace As heaven-smiled-upon as this? Was ever more celestial kiss? But once, did ever anywhere So full a choir chant such an air As feathered splendors bugled there? And was there ever blinder eye Or deafer ear than mine?_ A cry So soft, and yet so brimming filled With agony, my heart strings thrilled An ineffectual reply,-- Then gaunt against the southern sky The silent handiwork of hate. Greet, Virgin Tree, your holy mate! [Illustration] No sound then in the little room Was filtered through my sieve of gloom, Except the steady fall of tears, The hot, insistent rain that sears The burning ruts down which it goes, The futile flow, for all one knows How vain it is, that ever flows. I could not bear to look at _her_ There in the dark; I could not stir From where I sat, so weighted down. The king of grief, I held my crown So dear, I wore my tattered gown With such affection and such love That though I strove I could not move. But I could hear (and this unchained The raging beast in me) her pained And sorrow-riven voice ring out Above the spirit’s awful rout, Above the howling winds of doubt, How she knew Whom she traveled to Was judge of all that men might do To such as she who trusted Him. Faith was a tower for her, grim And insurmountable; and death She said was only changing breath Into an essence fine and rare. Anger smote me and most despair Seeing her still bow down in prayer. “Call on Him now,” I mocked, “and try Your faith against His deed, while I With intent equally as sane, Searching a motive for this pain, Will hold a little stone on high And seek of it the reason why. Which, stone or God, will first reply? Why? Hear me ask it. He was young And beautiful. Why was he flung Like common dirt to death? Why, stone, Must he of all the earth atone For what? The dirt God used was homely But the man He made was comely. What child creating out of sand, With puckered brow and intent hand, Would see the lovely thing he planned Struck with a lewd and wanton blade, Nor stretch a hand to what he made, Nor shed a childish, futile tear, Because he loved it, held it dear? Would not a child’s weak heart rebel? But Christ who conquered Death and Hell What has He done for you who spent A bleeding life for His content? Or is the white Christ, too, distraught By these dark sins His Father wrought?” [Illustration] I mocked her so until I broke Beneath my passion’s heavy yoke. My world went black with grief and pain: My very bitterness was slain, And I had need of only sleep, Or some dim place where I might weep My life away, some misty haunt Where never man might come to taunt Me with the thought of how men scar Their brothers here, or what we are Upon this most accursèd star. Not that sweet sleep from which some wake All fetterless, without an ache Of heart or limb, but such a sleep As had raped him, eternal, deep;-- Deep as my woe, vast as my pain, Sleep of the young and early-slain. My Lycidas was dead. There swung In all his glory, lusty, young, My Jonathan, my Patrocles, (For with his death there perished these) And I had neither sword nor song, Only an acid-bitten tongue, Fit neither in its poverty For vengeance nor for threnody, Only for tears and blasphemy. Now God be praised that a door should creak, And that a rusty hinge should shriek. Of all sweet sounds that I may hear Of lute or lyre or dulcimer, None ever shall assail my ear Sweet as the sound of a grating door I had thought closed forevermore. Out of my deep-ploughed agony, I turned to see a door swing free; The very door he once came through To death, now framed for us anew His vital self, his and no other’s Live body of the dead, my brother’s. Like one who dreams within a dream, Hand at my throat, lest I should scream, I moved with hopeful, doubting pace To meet the dead man face to face. “Bear witness now unto His grace”; I heard my mother’s mounting word, “Behold the glory of the Lord, His unimpeachable high seal. Cry mercy now before Him; kneel, And let your heart’s conversion swell The wonder of His miracle.” I saw; I touched; yet doubted him; My fingers faltered down his slim Sides, down his breathing length of limb. Incredulous of sight and touch, “No more,” I cried, “this is too much For one mad brain to stagger through.” For there he stood in utmost view Whose death I had been witness to; But now he breathed; he lived; he walked; His tongue could speak my name; he talked. He questioned me to know what art Had made his enemies depart. Either I leaped or crawled to where I last had seen stiff on the air The form than life more dear to me; But where had swayed that misery Now only was a flowering tree That soon would travail into fruit. Slowly my mind released its mute Bewilderment, while truth took root In me and blossomed into light: “Down, down,” I cried, in joy and fright, As all He said came back to me With what its true import must be, “Upon our knees and let the worst, Let me the sinfullest kneel first; O lovely Head to dust brought low More times than we can ever know Whose small regard, dust-ridden eye, Behold Your doom, yet doubt You die; O Form immaculately born, Betrayed a thousand times each morn, As many times each night denied, Surrendered, tortured, crucified! Now have we seen beyond degree That love which has no boundary; Our eyes have looked on Calvary.” No sound then in the sacred gloom That blessed the shrine that was our room Except the steady rise of praise To Him who shapes all nights and days Into one final burst of sun; Though with the praise some tears must run In pity of the King’s dear breath That ransomed one of us from death. The days are mellow for us now; We reap full fields; the heavy bough Bends to us in another land; The ripe fruit falls into our hand. My mother, Job’s dark sister, sits Now in a corner, prays, and knits. Often across her face there flits Remembered pain, to mar her joy, At Whose death gave her back her boy. While I who mouthed my blasphemies, Recalling now His agonies, Am found forever on my knees, Ever to praise her Christ with her, Knowing He can at will confer Magic on miracle to prove And try me when I doubt His love. If I am blind He does not see; If I am lame He halts with me; There is no hood of pain I wear That has not rested on His hair Making Him first initiate Beneath its harsh and hairy weight. He grew with me within the womb; He will receive me at the tomb. He will make plain the misty path He makes me tread in love and wrath, And bending down in peace and grace May wear again my brother’s face. Somewhere the Southland rears a tree, (And many others there may be Like unto it, that are unknown, Whereon as costly fruit has grown). It stands before a hut of wood In which the Christ Himself once stood-- And those who pass it by may see Nought growing there except a tree, But there are two to testify Who hung on it ... we saw Him die. Its roots were fed with priceless blood. It is the Cross; it is the Rood. Paris, January 31, 1929. [Illustration] Transcriber's Notes • Italics represented with surrounding _underscores_. • Small caps converted to ALL CAPS. • Illustrations relocated close to relevant content. • Obvious typographic errors silently corrected. • New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK CHRIST, & OTHER POEMS *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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