MOTHER NIGHT by: James Weldon Johnson (1871 1938) ETERNITIES before the first born day, Or ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame, Calm Night, the everlasting and the same, A brooding mother over chaos lay. And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay, Shall run their fiery courses and then claim The haven of the darkness whence they came; Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way. So when my feeble sun of life burns out, And sounded is the hour for my long sleep, I shall, full weary of the feverish light, Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt, And heavy lidded, I shall softly creep Into the quiet bosom of the Night.
AMERICA By Claude McKay ALTHOUGH she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate. Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
HARLEM SHADOWS By Claude McKay I HEAR the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire's call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest; Through the lone night until the last snow flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast, The dusky, half clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street. Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street.
YET DO I MARVEL By Countee Cullen 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 someday 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 brains compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
I,TOO, SING AMERICA By Langston Hughes I, too, am America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed I, too, am America.
WE WEAR THE MASK By Paul Laurence Dunbar We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile And mouth with myriad subtleties, Why should the world be over wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile, But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
SONG OF THE SON By Jean Toomer Pour O pour that parting soul in song, O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, Into the velvet pine smoke air to night, And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along. O land and soil, red soil and sweet gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch's sun declines Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, Thy son, I have in time returned to thee. In time, for though the sun is setting on A song lit race of slaves, it has not set; Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone. O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, Squeezed, and bursting in the pine wood air, Passing before they stripped the old tree bare One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes An everlasting song, a singing tree, Caroling softly souls of slavery, What they were, and what they are to me, Caroling softly souls of slavery.
BLACK WOMAN By Georgia Douglas Johnson Don t knock at the door, little child, I cannot let you in, You know not what a world this is Of cruelty and sin. Wait in the still eternity Until I come to you, The world is cruel, cruel, child, I cannot let you in! Don t knock at my heart, little one, I cannot bear the pain Of turning deaf ear to your call Time and time again! You do not know the monster men Inhabiting the earth, Be still, be still, my precious child, I must not give you birth!
FROM THE DARK TOWER By Countee Cullen We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made to eternally weep. The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, White stars is no less lovely being dark, And there are buds that cannot bloom at all In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
I SHALL RETURN AGAIN By Claude McKay I shall return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue black smoke to sapphire skies. I shall return to loiter by the streams That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, And realize once more my thousand dreams Of waters rushing down the mountain passes. I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife Of village dances, dear delicious tunes That stir the hidden depths of native life, Stray melodies of dim remembered runes. I shall return, I shall return again, To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.
One wants a teller in a time like this One's not a man, one's not a woman grown To bear enormous business all alone. One cannot walk this winding street with pride Straight shouldered, tranquil eyed, Knowing one knows for sure the way back home. One wonders if one has a home. One is not certain if or why or how. One wants a Teller now: Put on your rubbers and you won't catch a cold Here's hell, there's heaven. Go to Sunday School Be patient, time brings all good things (and cool Stong balm to calm the burning at the brain?) Behold, Love's true, and triumphs; and God's actual.