THE BOOK OF AMERICAN NEGRO POETRY

Chosen and Edited With An Essay On The Negro's Creative Genius

by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON

Author of "Fifty Years and Other Poems"



1922 Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., New York

Printed in the U.S.A. by the Quinn & Boden Company, Rahway, N.J.



CONTENTS

PREFACE

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A Negro Love Song Little Brown Baby Ships That Pass in the Night Lover's Lane The Debt The Haunted Oak When de Co'n Pone's Hot A Death Song

JAMES EDWIN CAMPBELL Negro Serenade De Cunjah Man Uncle Eph's Banjo Song Ol' Doc' Hyar When Ol' Sis' Judy Pray Compensation

JAMES D. CORROTHERS At the Closed Gate of Justice Paul Laurence Dunbar The Negro Singer The Road to the Bow In the Matter of Two Men An Indignation Dinner Dream and the Song

DANIEL WEBSTER DAVIS 'Weh Down Souf Hog Meat

WILLIAM H. A. MOORE Dusk Song It Was Not Fate

W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS A Litany of Atlanta

GEORGE MARION McCLELLAN Dogwood Blossoms A Butterfly in Church The Hills of Sewanee The Feet of Judas

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE Sandy Star and Willie Gee I. Sculptured Worship II. Laughing It Out III. The Exit IV. The Way V. Onus Probandi Del Cascar Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves Ironic: LL.D Scintilla Sic Vita Rhapsody

GEORGE REGINALD MARGETSON Stanzas from The Fledgling Bard and the Poetry Society

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON O Black and Unknown Bards Sence You Went Away The Creation The White Witch Mother Night O Southland Brothers Fifty Years

JOHN WESLEY HOLLOWAY Miss Melerlee Calling the Doctor The Corn Song Black Mammies

LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL Tuskegee Christmas at Melrose Summer Magic The Teacher

EDWARD SMYTH JONES A Song of Thanks

RAY G. DANDRIDGE Time to Die 'Ittle Touzle Head Zalka Peetruza Sprin' Fevah De Drum Majah

FENTON JOHNSON Children of the Sun The New Day Tired The Banjo Player The Scarlet Woman

R. NATHANIEL DETT The Rubinstein Staccato Etude

GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON The Heart of a Woman Youth Lost Illusions I Want to Die While You Love Me Welt My Little Dreams

CLAUDE McKAY The Lynching If We Must Die To the White Fiends The Harlem Dancer Harlem Shadows After the Winter Spring in New Hampshire The Tired Worker The Barrier To O. E. A Flame-Heart Two-an'-Six

JOSEPH S. COTTER, JR. A Prayer And What Shall You Say Is It Because I Am Black? The Band of Gideon Rain Music Supplication

ROSCOE C. JAMISON The Negro Soldiers

JESSIE FAUSET La Vie C'est la Vie Christmas Eve in France Dead Fires Oriflamme Oblivion

ANNE SPENCER Before the Feast of Shushan At the Carnival The Wife-Woman Translation Dunbar

ALEX ROGERS Why Adam Sinned The Rain Song

WAVERLEY TURNER CARMICHAEL Keep Me, Jesus, Keep Me Winter Is Coming

ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON Sonnet

CHARLES BERTRAM JOHNSON A Little Cabin Negro Poets

OTTO LEYLAND BOHANAN The Dawn's Awake! The Washer-Woman

THEODORE HENRY SHACKLEFORD The Big Bell in Zion

LUCIAN B. WATKINS Star of Ethiopia Two Points of View To Our Friends

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY My Hero Chaucer

JOSHUA HENRY JONES, JR. To a Skull



PREFACE

There is, perhaps, a better excuse for giving an Anthology of American Negro Poetry to the public than can be offered for many of the anthologies that have recently been issued. The public, generally speaking, does not know that there are American Negro poets—to supply this lack of information is, alone, a work worthy of somebody's effort.

Moreover, the matter of Negro poets and the production of literature by the colored people in this country involves more than supplying information that is lacking. It is a matter which has a direct bearing on the most vital of American problems.

A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced. The world does not know that a people is great until that people produces great literature and art. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior.

The status of the Negro in the United States' is more a question of national mental attitude toward the race than of actual conditions. And nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art.

Is there likelihood that the American Negro will be able to do this? There is, for the good reason that he possesses the innate powers. He has the emotional endowment, the originality and artistic conception, and, what is more important, the power of creating that which has universal appeal and influence.

I make here what may appear to be a more startling statement by saying that the Negro has already proved the possession of these powers by being the creator of the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products.

These creations by the American Negro may be summed up under four heads. The first two are the Uncle Remus stories, which were collected by Joel Chandler Harris, and the "spirituals" or slave songs, to which the Fisk Jubilee Singers made the public and the musicians of both the United States and Europe listen. The Uncle Remus stories constitute the greatest body of folklore that America has produced, and the "spirituals" the greatest body of folk-song. I shall speak of the "spirituals" later because they are more than folk-songs, for in them the Negro sounded the depths, if he did not scale the heights, of music.

The other two creations are the Cakewalk and ragtime. We do not need to go very far back to remember when cakewalking was the rage in the United States, Europe and South America. Society in this country and royalty abroad spent time in practicing the intricate steps. Paris pronounced it the "poetry of motion." The popularity of the cakewalk passed away but its influence remained. The influence can be seen to-day on any American stage where there is dancing.

The influence which the Negro has exercised on the art of dancing in this country has been almost absolute. For generations the "buck and wing" and the "stop-time" dances, which are strictly Negro, have been familiar to American theatre audiences. A few years ago the public discovered the "turkey trot," the "eagle rock," "ballin' the jack," and several other varieties that started the modern dance craze. These dances were quickly followed by the "tango," a dance originated by the Negroes of Cuba and later transplanted to South America. (This fact is attested by no less authority than Vincente Blasco Ibanez in his "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.") Half the floor space in the country was then turned over to dancing, and highly paid exponents sprang up everywhere. The most noted, Mr. Vernon Castle, and, by the way, an Englishman, never danced except to the music of a colored band, and he never failed to state to his audiences that most of his dances had long been done by "your colored people," as he put it.

Any one who witnesses a musical production in which there is dancing cannot fail to notice the Negro stamp on all the movements; a stamp which even the great vogue of Russian dances that swept the country about the time of the popular dance craze could not affect. That peculiar swaying of the shoulders which you see done everywhere by the blond girls of the chorus is nothing more than a movement from the Negro dance referred to above, the "eagle rock." Occasionally the movement takes on a suggestion of the, now outlawed, "shimmy."

As for Ragtime, I go straight to the statement that it is the one artistic production by which America is known the world over. It has been all-conquering. Everywhere it is hailed as "American music."

For a dozen years or so there has been a steady tendency to divorce Ragtime from the Negro; in fact, to take from him the credit of having originated it. Probably the younger people of the present generation do not know that Ragtime is of Negro origin. The change wrought in Ragtime and the way in which it is accepted by the country have been brought about chiefly through the change which has gradually been made in the words and stories accompanying the music. Once the text of all Ragtime songs was written in Negro dialect, and was about Negroes in the cabin or in the cotton field or on the levee or at a jubilee or on Sixth Avenue or at a ball, and about their love affairs. To-day, only a small proportion of Ragtime songs relate at all to the Negro. The truth is, Ragtime is now national rather than racial. But that does not abolish in any way the claim of the American Negro as its originator.

Ragtime music was originated by colored piano players in the questionable resorts of St. Louis, Memphis, and other Mississippi River towns. These men did not know any more about the theory of music than they did about the theory of the universe. They were guided by their natural musical instinct and talent, but above all by the Negro's extraordinary sense of rhythm. Any one who is familiar with Ragtime may note that its chief charm is not in melody, but in rhythms. These players often improvised crude and, at times, vulgar words to fit the music. This was the beginning of the Ragtime song.

Ragtime music got its first popular hearing at Chicago during the world's fair in that city. From Chicago it made its way to New York, and then started on its universal triumph.

The earliest Ragtime songs, like Topsy, "jes' grew." Some of these earliest songs were taken down by white men, the words slightly altered or changed, and published under the names of the arrangers. They sprang into immediate popularity and earned small fortunes. The first to become widely known was "The Bully," a levee song which had been long used by roustabouts along the Mississippi. It was introduced in New York by Miss May Irwin, and gained instant popularity. Another one of these "jes' grew" songs was one which for a while disputed for place with Yankee Doodle; perhaps, disputes it even to-day. That song was "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night"; introduced and made popular by the colored regimental bands during the Spanish-American War.

Later there came along a number of colored men who were able to transcribe the old songs and write original ones. I was, about that time, writing words to music for the music show stage in New York. I was collaborating with my brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, and the late Bob Cole. I remember that we appropriated about the last one of the old "jes' grew" songs. It was a song which had been sung for years all through the South. The words were unprintable, but the tune was irresistible, and belonged to nobody. We took it, re-wrote the verses, telling an entirely different story from the original, left the chorus as it was, and published the song, at first under the name of "Will Handy." It became very popular with college boys, especially at football games, and perhaps still is. The song was, "Oh, Didn't He Ramble!"

In the beginning, and for quite a while, almost all of the Ragtime songs that were deliberately composed were the work of colored writers. Now, the colored composers, even in this particular field, are greatly outnumbered by the white.

The reader might be curious to know if the "jes' grew" songs have ceased to grow. No, they have not; they are growing all the time. The country has lately been flooded with several varieties of "The Blues." These "Blues," too, had their origin in Memphis, and the towns along the Mississippi. They are a sort of lament of a lover who is feeling "blue" over the loss of his sweetheart. The "Blues" of Memphis have been adulterated so much on Broadway that they have lost their pristine hue. But whenever you hear a piece of music which has a strain like this in it:



you will know you are listening to something which belonged originally to Beale Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. The original "Memphis Blues," so far as it can be credited to a composer, must be credited to Mr. W. C. Handy, a colored musician of Memphis.

As illustrations of the genuine Ragtime song in the making, I quote the words of two that were popular with the Southern colored soldiers in France. Here is the first:

"Mah mammy's lyin' in her grave, Mah daddy done run away, Mah sister's married a gamblin' man, An' I've done gone astray. Yes, I've done gone astray, po' boy, An' I've done gone astray, Mah sister's married a gamblin' man, An' I've done gone astray, po' boy."

These lines are crude, but they contain something of real poetry, of that elusive thing which nobody can define and that you can only tell that it is there when you feel it. You cannot read these lines without becoming reflective and feeling sorry for "Po' Boy."

Now, take in this word picture of utter dejection:

"I'm jes' as misabul as I can be, I'm unhappy even if I am free, I'm feelin' down, I'm feelin' blue; I wander 'round, don't know what to do. I'm go'n lay mah haid on de railroad line, Let de B. & O. come and pacify mah min'."

These lines are, no doubt, one of the many versions of the famous "Blues." They are also crude, but they go straight to the mark. The last two lines move with the swiftness of all great tragedy.

In spite of the bans which musicians and music teachers have placed on it, the people still demand and enjoy Ragtime. In fact, there is not a corner of the civilized world in which it is not known and liked. And this proves its originality, for if it were an imitation, the people of Europe, at least, would not have found it a novelty. And it is proof of a more important thing, it is proof that Ragtime possesses the vital spark, the power to appeal universally, without which any artistic production, no matter how approved its form may be, is dead.

Of course, there are those who will deny that Ragtime is an artistic production. American musicians, especially, instead of investigating Ragtime, dismiss it with a contemptuous word. But this has been the course of scholasticism in every branch of art. Whatever new thing the people like is pooh-poohed; whatever is popular is regarded as not worth while. The fact is, nothing great or enduring in music has ever sprung full-fledged from the brain of any master; the best he gives the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.

Ragtime deserves serious attention. There is a lot of colorless and vicious imitation, but there is enough that is genuine. In one composition alone, "The Memphis Blues," the musician will find not only great melodic beauty, but a polyphonic structure that is amazing.

It is obvious that Ragtime has influenced, and in a large measure, become our popular music; but not many would know that it has influenced even our religious music. Those who are familiar with gospel hymns can at once see this influence if they will compare the songs of thirty years ago, such as "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," "The Ninety and Nine," etc., with the up-to-date, syncopated tunes that are sung in Sunday Schools, Christian Endeavor Societies, Y.M.C.A.'s and like gatherings to-day.

Ragtime has not only influenced American music, it has influenced American life; indeed, it has saturated American life. It has become the popular medium for our national expression musically. And who can say that it does not express the blare and jangle and the surge, too, of our national spirit?

Any one who doubts that there is a peculiar heel-tickling, smile-provoking, joy-awakening, response-compelling charm in Ragtime needs only to hear a skilful performer play the genuine article, needs only to listen to its bizarre harmonies, its audacious resolutions often consisting of an abrupt jump from one key to another, its intricate rhythms in which the accents fall in the most unexpected places but in which the fundamental beat is never lost in order to be convinced. I believe it has its place as well as the music which draws from us sighs and tears.

Now, these dances which I have referred to and Ragtime music may be lower forms of art, but they are evidence of a power that will some day be applied to the higher forms. And even now we need not stop at the Negro's accomplishment through these lower forms. In the "spirituals," or slave songs, the Negro has given America not only its only folksongs, but a mass of noble music. I never think of this music but that I am struck by the wonder, the miracle of its production. How did the men who originated these songs manage to do it? The sentiments are easily accounted for; they are, for the most part, taken from the Bible. But the melodies, where did they come from? Some of them so weirdly sweet, and others so wonderfully strong. Take, for instance, "Go Down, Moses"; I doubt that there is a stronger theme in the whole musical literature of the world.



It is to be noted that whereas the chief characteristic of Ragtime is rhythm, the chief characteristic of the "spirituals" is melody. The melodies of "Steal Away to Jesus," "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See," "I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray," "Deep River," "O, Freedom Over Me," and many others of these songs possess a beauty that is—what shall I say? poignant. In the riotous rhythms of Ragtime the Negro expressed his irrepressible buoyancy, his keen response to the sheer joy of living; in the "spirituals" he voiced his sense of beauty and his deep religious feeling.

Naturally, not as much can be said for the words of these songs as for the music. Most of the songs are religious. Some of them are songs expressing faith and endurance and a longing for freedom. In the religious songs, the sentiments and often the entire lines are taken bodily from the Bible. However, there is no doubt that some of these religious songs have a meaning apart from the Biblical text. It is evident that the opening lines of "Go Down, Moses,"

"Go down, Moses, 'Way down in Egypt land; Tell old Pharoah, Let my people go."

have a significance beyond the bondage of Israel in Egypt.

The bulk of the lines to these songs, as is the case in all communal music, is made up of choral iteration and incremental repetition of the leader's lines. If the words are read, this constant iteration and repetition are found to be tiresome; and it must be admitted that the lines themselves are often very trite. And, yet, there is frequently revealed a flash of real, primitive poetry. I give the following examples:

"Sometimes I feel like an eagle in de air."

"You may bury me in de East, You may bury me in de West, But I'll hear de trumpet sound In-a dat mornin'."

"I know de moonlight, I know de starlight; I lay dis body down. I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight; I lay dis body down. I know de graveyard, I know de graveyard, When I lay dis body down. I walk in de graveyard, I walk troo de graveyard To lay dis body down.

I lay in de grave an' stretch out my arms; I lay dis body down. I go to de judgment in de evenin' of de day When I lay dis body down. An' my soul an' yo' soul will meet in de day When I lay dis body down."

Regarding the line, "I lay in de grave an' stretch out my arms," Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson of Boston, one of the first to give these slave songs serious study, said: "Never it seems to me, since man first lived and suffered, was his infinite longing for peace uttered more plaintively than in that line."

These Negro folksongs constitute a vast mine of material that has been neglected almost absolutely. The only white writers who have in recent years given adequate attention and study to this music, that I know of, are Mr. H.E. Krehbiel and Mrs. Natalie Curtis Burlin. We have our native composers denying the worth and importance of this music, and trying to manufacture grand opera out of so-called Indian themes.

But there is a great hope for the development of this music, and that hope is the Negro himself. A worthy beginning has already been made by Burleigh, Cook, Johnson, and Dett. And there will yet come great Negro composers who will take this music and voice through it not only the soul of their race, but the soul of America.

And does it not seem odd that this greatest gift of the Negro has been the most neglected of all he possesses? Money and effort have been expended upon his development in every direction except this. This gift has been regarded as a kind of side show, something for occasional exhibition; wherein it is the touchstone, it is the magic thing, it is that by which the Negro can bridge all chasms. No persons, however hostile, can listen to Negroes singing this wonderful music without having their hostility melted down.

This power of the Negro to suck up the national spirit from the soil and create something artistic and original, which, at the same time, possesses the note of universal appeal, is due to a remarkable racial gift of adaptability; it is more than adaptability, it is a transfusive quality. And the Negro has exercised this transfusive quality not only here in America, where the race lives in large numbers, but in European countries, where the number has been almost infinitesimal.

Is it not curious to know that the greatest poet of Russia is Alexander Pushkin, a man of African descent; that the greatest romancer of France is Alexander Dumas, a man of African descent; and that one of the greatest musicians of England is Coleridge-Taylor, a man of African descent?

The fact is fairly well known that the father of Dumas was a Negro of the French West Indies, and that the father of Coleridge-Taylor was a native-born African; but the facts concerning Pushkin's African ancestry are not so familiar.

When Peter the Great was Czar of Russia, some potentate presented him with a full-blooded Negro of gigantic size. Peter, the most eccentric ruler of modern times, dressed this Negro up in soldier clothes, christened him Hannibal, and made him a special body-guard.

But Hannibal had more than size, he had brain and ability. He not only looked picturesque and imposing in soldier clothes, he showed that he had in him the making of a real soldier. Peter recognized this, and eventually made him a general. He afterwards ennobled him, and Hannibal, later, married one of the ladies of the Russian court. This same Hannibal was great-grandfather of Pushkin, the national poet of Russia, the man who bears the same relation to Russian literature that Shakespeare bears to English literature.

I know the question naturally arises: If out of the few Negroes who have lived in France there came a Dumas; and out of the few Negroes who have lived in England there came a Coleridge-Taylor; and if from the man who was at the time, probably, the only Negro in Russia there sprang that country's national poet, why have not the millions of Negroes in the United States with all the emotional and artistic endowment claimed for them produced a Dumas, or a Coleridge-Taylor, or a Pushkin?

The question seems difficult, but there is an answer. The Negro in the United States is consuming all of his intellectual energy in this gruelling race-struggle. And the same statement may be made in a general way about the white South. Why does not the white South produce literature and art? The white South, too, is consuming all of its intellectual energy in this lamentable conflict. Nearly all of the mental efforts of the white South run through one narrow channel. The life of every Southern white man and all of his activities are impassably limited by the ever present Negro problem. And that is why, as Mr. H. L. Mencken puts it, in all that vast region, with its thirty or forty million people and its territory as large as a half a dozen Frances or Germanys, there is not a single poet, not a serious historian, not a creditable composer, not a critic good or bad, not a dramatist dead or alive.

But, even so, the American Negro has accomplished something in pure literature. The list of those who have done so would be surprising both by its length and the excellence of the achievements. One of the great books written in this country since the Civil War is the work of a colored man, "The Souls of Black Folk," by W.E.B. Du Bois.

Such a list begins with Phillis Wheatley. In 1761 a slave ship landed a cargo of slaves in Boston. Among them was a little girl seven or eight years of age. She attracted the attention of John Wheatley, a wealthy gentleman of Boston, who purchased her as a servant for his wife. Mrs. Wheatley was a benevolent woman. She noticed the girl's quick mind and determined to give her opportunity for its development. Twelve years later Phillis published a volume of poems. The book was brought out in London, where Phillis was for several months an object of great curiosity and attention.

Phillis Wheatley has never been given her rightful place in American literature. By some sort of conspiracy she is kept out of most of the books, especially the text-books on literature used in the schools. Of course, she is not a great American poet—and in her day there were no great American poets—but she is an important American poet. Her importance, if for no other reason, rests on the fact that, save one, she is the first in order of time of all the women poets of America. And she is among the first of all American poets to issue a volume.

It seems strange that the books generally give space to a mention of Urian Oakes, President of Harvard College, and to quotations from the crude and lengthy elegy which he published in 1667; and print examples from the execrable versified version of the Psalms made by the New England divines, and yet deny a place to Phillis Wheatley.

Here are the opening lines from the elegy by Oakes, which is quoted from in most of the books on American literature:

"Reader, I am no poet, but I grieve. Behold here what that passion can do, That forced a verse without Apollo's leave, And whether the learned sisters would or no."

There was no need for Urian to admit what his handiwork declared. But this from the versified Psalms is still worse, yet it is found in the books:

"The Lord's song sing can we? being in stranger's land, then let lose her skill my right hand if I Jerusalem forget."

Anne Bradstreet preceded Phillis Wheatley by a little over twenty years. She published her volume of poems, "The Tenth Muse," in 1750. Let us strike a comparison between the two. Anne Bradstreet was a wealthy, cultivated Puritan girl, the daughter of Thomas Dudley, Governor of Bay Colony. Phillis, as we know, was a Negro slave girl born in Africa. Let us take them both at their best and in the same vein. The following stanza is from Anne's poem entitled "Contemplation":

"While musing thus with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, The sweet tongued Philomel percht o'er my head, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judged my hearing better than my sight, And wisht me wings with her awhile to take my flight."

And the following is from Phillis' poem entitled "Imagination":

"Imagination! who can sing thy force? Or who describe the swiftness of thy course? Soaring through air to find the bright abode, The empyreal palace of the thundering God, We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, And leave the rolling universe behind, From star to star the mental optics rove, Measure the skies, and range the realms above, There in one view we grasp the mighty whole, Or with new worlds amaze the unbounded soul."

We do not think the black woman suffers much by comparison with the white. Thomas Jefferson said of Phillis: "Religion has produced a Phillis Wheatley, but it could not produce a poet; her poems are beneath contempt." It is quite likely that Jefferson's criticism was directed more against religion than against Phillis' poetry. On the other hand, General George Washington wrote her with his own hand a letter in which he thanked her for a poem which she had dedicated to him. He, later, received her with marked courtesy at his camp at Cambridge.

It appears certain that Phillis was the first person to apply to George Washington the phrase, "First in peace." The phrase occurs in her poem addressed to "His Excellency, General George Washington," written in 1775. The encomium, "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen" was originally used in the resolutions presented to Congress on the death of Washington, December, 1799.

Phillis Wheatley's poetry is the poetry of the Eighteenth Century. She wrote when Pope and Gray were supreme; it is easy to see that Pope was her model. Had she come under the influence of Wordsworth, Byron or Keats or Shelley, she would have done greater work. As it is, her work must not be judged by the work and standards of a later day, but by the work and standards of her own day and her own contemporaries. By this method of criticism she stands out as one of the important characters in the making of American literature, without any allowances for her sex or her antecedents.

According to "A Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry," compiled by Mr. Arthur A. Schomburg, more than one hundred Negroes in the United States have published volumes of poetry ranging in size from pamphlets to books of from one hundred to three hundred pages. About thirty of these writers fill in the gap between Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Just here it is of interest to note that a Negro wrote and published a poem before Phillis Wheatley arrived in this country from Africa. He was Jupiter Hammon, a slave belonging to a Mr. Lloyd of Queens-Village, Long Island. In 1760 Hammon published a poem, eighty-eight lines in length, entitled "An Evening Thought, Salvation by Christ, with Penettential Cries." In 1788 he published "An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley, Ethiopian Poetess in Boston, who came from Africa at eight years of age, and soon became acquainted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ." These two poems do not include all that Hammon wrote.

The poets between Phillis Wheatley and Dunbar must be considered more in the light of what they attempted than of what they accomplished. Many of them showed marked talent, but barely a half dozen of them demonstrated even mediocre mastery of technique in the use of poetic material and forms. And yet there are several names that deserve mention. George M. Horton, Frances E. Harper, James M. Bell and Alberry A. Whitman, all merit consideration when due allowances are made for their limitations in education, training and general culture. The limitations of Horton were greater than those of either of the others; he was born a slave in North Carolina in 1797, and as a young man began to compose poetry without being able to write it down. Later he received some instruction from professors of the University of North Carolina, at which institution he was employed as a janitor. He published a volume of poems, "The Hope of Liberty," in 1829.

Mrs. Harper, Bell and Whitman would stand out if only for the reason that each of them attempted sustained work. Mrs. Harper published her first volume of poems in 1854, but later she published "Moses, a Story of the Nile," a poem which ran to 52 closely printed pages. Bell in 1864 published a poem of 28 pages in celebration of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. In 1870 he published a poem of 32 pages in celebration of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Whitman published his first volume of poems, a book of 253 pages, in 1877; but in 1884 he published "The Rape of Florida," an epic poem written in four cantos and done in the Spenserian stanza, and which ran to 97 closely printed pages. The poetry of both Mrs. Harper and of Whitman had a large degree of popularity; one of Mrs. Harper's books went through more than twenty editions.

Of these four poets, it is Whitman who reveals not only the greatest imagination but also the more skilful workmanship. His lyric power at its best may be judged from the following stanza from the "Rape of Florida":

"'Come now, my love, the moon is on the lake; Upon the waters is my light canoe; Come with me, love, and gladsome oars shall make A music on the parting wave for you. Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue; Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung, Come with me, love, for Oh, my love is true!' This is the song that on the lake was sung, The boatman sang it when his heart was young."

Some idea of Whitman's capacity for dramatic narration may be gained from the following lines taken from "Not a Man, and Yet a Man," a poem of even greater length than "The Rape of Florida":

"A flash of steely lightning from his hand, Strikes down the groaning leader of the band; Divides his startled comrades, and again Descending, leaves fair Dora's captors slain. Her, seizing then within a strong embrace, Out in the dark he wheels his flying pace;

He speaks not, but with stalwart tenderness Her swelling bosom firm to his doth press; Springs like a stag that flees the eager hound, And like a whirlwind rustles o'er the ground. Her locks swim in dishevelled wildness o'er His shoulders, streaming to his waist and more; While on and on, strong as a rolling flood, His sweeping footsteps part the silent wood."

It is curious and interesting to trace the growth of individuality and race consciousness in this group of poets. Jupiter Hammon's verses were almost entirely religious exhortations. Only very seldom does Phillis Wheatley sound a native note. Four times in single lines she refers to herself as "Afric's muse." In a poem of admonition addressed to the students at the "University of Cambridge in New England" she refers to herself as follows:

"Ye blooming plants of human race divine, An Ethiop tells you 'tis your greatest foe."

But one looks in vain for some outburst or even complaint against the bondage of her people, for some agonizing cry about her native land. In two poems she refers definitely to Africa as her home, but in each instance there seems to be under the sentiment of the lines a feeling of almost smug contentment at her own escape therefrom. In the poem, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," she says:

"'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God and there's a Saviour too; Once I redemption neither sought or knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, 'Their color is a diabolic dye.' Remember, Christians, Negroes black as Cain, May be refined, and join th' angelic train."

In the poem addressed to the Earl of Dartmouth, she speaks of freedom and makes a reference to the parents from whom she was taken as a child, a reference which cannot but strike the reader as rather unimpassioned:

"Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood; I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat; What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labor in my parents' breast? Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd; Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?"

The bulk of Phillis Wheatley's work consists of poems addressed to people of prominence. Her book was dedicated to the Countess of Huntington, at whose house she spent the greater part of her time while in England. On his repeal of the Stamp Act, she wrote a poem to King George III, whom she saw later; another poem she wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth, whom she knew. A number of her verses were addressed to other persons of distinction. Indeed, it is apparent that Phillis was far from being a democrat. She was far from being a democrat not only in her social ideas but also in her political ideas; unless a religious meaning is given to the closing lines of her ode to General Washington, she was a decided royalist:

"A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine With gold unfading, Washington! be thine."

Nevertheless, she was an ardent patriot. Her ode to General Washington (1775), her spirited poem, "On Major General Lee" (1776) and her poem, "Liberty and Peace," written in celebration of the close of the war, reveal not only strong patriotic feeling but an understanding of the issues at stake. In her poem, "On Major General Lee," she makes her hero reply thus to the taunts of the British commander into whose hands he has been delivered through treachery:

"O arrogance of tongue! And wild ambition, ever prone to wrong! Believ'st thou, chief, that armies such as thine Can stretch in dust that heaven-defended line? In vain allies may swarm from distant lands, And demons aid in formidable bands, Great as thou art, thou shun'st the field of fame, Disgrace to Britain and the British name! When offer'd combat by the noble foe, (Foe to misrule) why did the sword forego The easy conquest of the rebel-land? Perhaps TOO easy for thy martial hand.

What various causes to the field invite! For plunder YOU, and we for freedom fight, Her cause divine with generous ardor fires, And every bosom glows as she inspires! Already thousands of your troops have fled To the drear mansions of the silent dead: Columbia, too, beholds with streaming eyes Her heroes fall—'tis freedom's sacrifice! So wills the power who with convulsive storms Shakes impious realms, and nature's face deforms; Yet those brave troops, innum'rous as the sands, One soul inspires, one General Chief commands; Find in your train of boasted heroes, one To match the praise of Godlike Washington. Thrice happy Chief in whom the virtues join, And heaven taught prudence speaks the man divine."

What Phillis Wheatley failed to achieve is due in no small degree to her education and environment. Her mind was steeped in the classics; her verses are filled with classical and mythological allusions. She knew Ovid thoroughly and was familiar with other Latin authors. She must have known Alexander Pope by heart. And, too, she was reared and sheltered in a wealthy and cultured family,—a wealthy and cultured Boston family; she never had the opportunity to learn life; she never found out her own true relation to life and to her surroundings. And it should not be forgotten that she was only about thirty years old when she died. The impulsion or the compulsion that might have driven her genius off the worn paths, out on a journey of exploration, Phillis Wheatley never received. But, whatever her limitations, she merits more than America has accorded her.

Horton, who was born three years after Phillis Wheatley's death, expressed in all of his poetry strong complaint at his condition of slavery and a deep longing for freedom. The following verses are typical of his style and his ability:

"Alas! and am I born for this, To wear this slavish chain? Deprived of all created bliss, Through hardship, toil, and pain?

* * * * *

Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound, Roll through my ravished ears; Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, And drive away my fears."

In Mrs. Harper we find something more than the complaint and the longing of Horton. We find an expression of a sense of wrong and injustice. The following stanzas are from a poem addressed to the white women of America:

"You can sigh o'er the sad-eyed Armenian Who weeps in her desolate home. You can mourn o'er the exile of Russia From kindred and friends doomed to roam.

* * * * *

But hark! from our Southland are floating Sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain, And women heart-stricken are weeping O'er their tortured and slain.

* * * * *

Have ye not, oh, my favored sisters, Just a plea, a prayer or a tear For mothers who dwell 'neath the shadows Of agony, hatred and fear?

* * * * *

Weep not, oh my well sheltered sisters, Weep not for the Negro alone, But weep for your sons who must gather The crops which their fathers have sown."

Whitman, in the midst of "The Rape of Florida," a poem in which he related the taking of the State of Florida from the Seminoles, stops and discusses the race question. He discusses it in many other poems; and he discusses it from many different angles. In Whitman we find not only an expression of a sense of wrong and injustice, but we hear a note of faith and a note also of defiance. For example, in the opening to Canto II of "The Rape of Florida":

"Greatness by nature cannot be entailed; It is an office ending with the man,— Sage, hero, Saviour, tho' the Sire be hailed, The son may reach obscurity in the van: Sublime achievements know no patent plan, Man's immortality's a book with seals, And none but God shall open—none else can— But opened, it the mystery reveals,— Manhood's conquest of man to heaven's respect appeals.

"Is manhood less because man's face is black? Let thunders of the loosened seals reply! Who shall the rider's restive steed turn back, Or who withstand the arrows he lets fly Between the mountains of eternity? Genius ride forth! Thou gift and torch of heav'n! The mastery is kindled in thine eye; To conquest ride! thy bow of strength is giv'n— The trampled hordes of caste before thee shall be driv'n!

* * * * *

"'Tis hard to judge if hatred of one's race, By those who deem themselves superior-born, Be worse than that quiescence in disgrace, Which only merits—and should only—scorn. Oh, let me see the Negro night and morn, Pressing and fighting in, for place and power! All earth is place—all time th' auspicious hour, While heaven leans forth to look, oh, will he quail or cower?

"Ah! I abhor his protest and complaint! His pious looks and patience I despise! He can't evade the test, disguised as saint; The manly voice of freedom bids him rise, And shake himself before Philistine eyes! And, like a lion roused, no sooner than A foe dare come, play all his energies, And court the fray with fury if he can; For hell itself respects a fearless, manly man."

It may be said that none of these poets strike a deep native strain or sound a distinctively original note, either in matter or form. That is true; but the same thing may be said of all the American poets down to the writers of the present generation, with the exception of Poe and Walt Whitman. The thing in which these black poets are mostly excelled by their contemporaries is mere technique.

Paul Laurence Dunbar stands out as the first poet from the Negro race in the United States to show a combined mastery over poetic material and poetic technique, to reveal innate literary distinction in what he wrote, and to maintain a high level of performance. He was the first to rise to a height from which he could take a perspective view of his own race. He was the first to see objectively its humor, its superstitions, its shortcomings; the first to feel sympathetically its heart-wounds, its yearnings, its aspirations, and to voice them all in a purely literary form.

Dunbar's fame rests chiefly on his poems in Negro dialect. This appraisal of him is, no doubt, fair; for in these dialect poems he not only carried his art to the highest point of perfection, but he made a contribution to American literature unlike what any one else had made, a contribution which, perhaps, no one else could have made. Of course, Negro dialect poetry was written before Dunbar wrote, most of it by white writers; but the fact stands out that Dunbar was the first to use it as a medium for the true interpretation of Negro character and psychology. And, yet, dialect poetry does not constitute the whole or even the bulk of Dunbar's work. In addition to a large number of poems of a very high order done in literary English, he was the author of four novels and several volumes of short stories.

Indeed, Dunbar did not begin his career as a writer of dialect. I may be pardoned for introducing here a bit of reminiscence. My personal friendship with Paul Dunbar began before he had achieved recognition, and continued to be close until his death. When I first met him he had published a thin volume, "Oak and Ivy," which was being sold chiefly through his own efforts. "Oak and Ivy" showed no distinctive Negro influence, but rather the influence of James Whitcomb Riley. At this time Paul and I were together every day for several months. He talked to me a great deal about his hopes and ambitions. In these talks he revealed that he had reached a realization of the possibilities of poetry in the dialect, together with a recognition of the fact that it offered the surest way by which he could get a hearing. Often he said to me: "I've got to write dialect poetry; it's the only way I can get them to listen to me." I was with Dunbar at the beginning of what proved to be his last illness. He said to me then: "I have not grown. I am writing the same things I wrote ten years ago, and am writing them no better." His self-accusation was not fully true; he had grown, and he had gained a surer control of his art, but he had not accomplished the greater things of which he was constantly dreaming; the public had held him to the things for which it had accorded him recognition. If Dunbar had lived he would have achieved some of those dreams, but even while he talked so dejectedly to me he seemed to feel that he was not to live. He died when he was only thirty-three.

It has a bearing on this entire subject to note that Dunbar was of unmixed Negro blood; so, as the greatest figure in literature which the colored race in the United States has produced, he stands as an example at once refuting and confounding those who wish to believe that whatever extraordinary ability an Aframerican shows is due to an admixture of white blood.

As a man, Dunbar was kind and tender. In conversation he was brilliant and polished. His voice was his chief charm, and was a great element in his success as a reader of his own works. In his actions he was impulsive as a child, sometimes even erratic; indeed, his intimate friends almost looked upon him as a spoiled boy. He was always delicate in health. Temperamentally, he belonged to that class of poets who Taine says are vessels too weak to contain the spirit of poetry, the poets whom poetry kills, the Byrons, the Burns's, the De Mussets, the Poes.

To whom may he be compared, this boy who scribbled his early verses while he ran an elevator, whose youth was a battle against poverty, and who, in spite of almost insurmountable obstacles, rose to success? A comparison between him and Burns is not unfitting. The similarity between many phases of their lives is remarkable, and their works are not incommensurable. Burns took the strong dialect of his people and made it classic; Dunbar took the humble speech of his people and in it wrought music.

Mention of Dunbar brings up for consideration the fact that, although he is the most outstanding figure in literature among the Aframericans of the United States, he does not stand alone among the Aframericans of the whole Western world. There are Placido and Manzano in Cuba; Vieux and Durand in Haiti, Machado de Assis in Brazil; Leon Laviaux in Martinique, and others still that might be mentioned, who stand on a plane with or even above Dunbar. Placido and Machado de Assis rank as great in the literatures of their respective countries without any qualifications whatever. They are world figures in the literature of the Latin languages. Machado de Assis is somewhat handicapped in this respect by having as his tongue and medium the lesser known Portuguese, but Placido, writing in the language of Spain, Mexico, Cuba and of almost the whole of South America, is universally known. His works have been republished in the original in Spain, Mexico and in most of the Latin-American countries; several editions have been published in the United States; translations of his works have been made into French and German.

Placido is in some respects the greatest of all the Cuban poets. In sheer genius and the fire of inspiration he surpasses even the more finished Heredia. Then, too, his birth, his life and his death ideally contained the tragic elements that go into the making of a halo about a poet's head. Placido was born in Habana in 1809. The first months of his life were passed in a foundling asylum; indeed, his real name, Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes, was in honor of its founder. His father took him out of the asylum, but shortly afterwards went to Mexico and died there. His early life was a struggle against poverty; his youth and manhood was a struggle for Cuban independence. His death placed him in the list of Cuban martyrs. On the 27th of June, 1844, he was lined up against a wall with ten others and shot by order of the Spanish authorities on a charge of conspiracy. In his short but eventful life he turned out work which bulks more than six hundred pages. During the few hours preceding his execution he wrote three of his best known poems, among them his famous sonnet, "Mother, Farewell!"

Placido's sonnet to his mother has been translated into every important language; William Cullen Bryant did it in English; but in spite of its wide popularity, it is, perhaps, outside of Cuba the least understood of all Placido's poems. It is curious to note how Bryant's translation totally misses the intimate sense of the delicate subtility of the poem. The American poet makes it a tender and loving farewell of a son who is about to die to a heart-broken mother; but that is not the kind of a farewell that Placido intended to write or did write.

The key to the poem is in the first word, and the first word is the Spanish conjunction Si (if). The central idea, then, of the sonnet is, "If the sad fate which now overwhelms me should bring a pang to your heart, do not weep, for I die a glorious death and sound the last note of my lyre to you." Bryant either failed to understand or ignored the opening word, "If," because he was not familiar with the poet's history.

While Placido's father was a Negro, his mother was a Spanish white woman, a dancer in one of the Habana theatres. At his birth she abandoned him to a foundling asylum, and perhaps never saw him again, although it is known that she outlived her son. When the poet came down to his last hours he remembered that somewhere there lived a woman who was his mother; that although she had heartlessly abandoned him; that although he owed her no filial duty, still she might, perhaps, on hearing of his sad end feel some pang of grief or sadness; so he tells her in his last words that he dies happy and bids her not to weep. This he does with nobility and dignity, but absolutely without affection. Taking into account these facts, and especially their humiliating and embittering effect upon a soul so sensitive as Placido's, this sonnet, in spite of the obvious weakness of the sestet as compared with the octave, is a remarkable piece of work.[1]

[Footnote 1: Placido's sonnet and two English versions will be found in the Appendix.]

In considering the Aframerican poets of the Latin languages I am impelled to think that, as up to this time the colored poets of greater universality have come out of the Latin-American countries rather than out of the United States, they will continue to do so for a good many years. The reason for this I hinted at in the first part of this preface. The colored poet in the United States labors within limitations which he cannot easily pass over. He is always on the defensive or the offensive. The pressure upon him to be propagandic is well nigh irresistible. These conditions are suffocating to breadth and to real art in poetry. In addition he labors under the handicap of finding culture not entirely colorless in the United States. On the other hand, the colored poet of Latin-America can voice the national spirit without any reservations. And he will be rewarded without any reservations, whether it be to place him among the great or declare him the greatest.

So I think it probable that the first world-acknowledged Aframerican poet will come out of Latin-America. Over against this probability, of course, is the great advantage possessed by the colored poet in the United States of writing in the world-conquering English language.

This preface has gone far beyond what I had in mind when I started. It was my intention to gather together the best verses I could find by Negro poets and present them with a bare word of introduction. It was not my plan to make this collection inclusive nor to make the book in any sense a book of criticism. I planned to present only verses by contemporary writers; but, perhaps, because this is the first collection of its kind, I realized the absence of a starting-point and was led to provide one and to fill in with historical data what I felt to be a gap.

It may be surprising to many to see how little of the poetry being written by Negro poets to-day is being written in Negro dialect. The newer Negro poets show a tendency to discard dialect; much of the subject-matter which went into the making of traditional dialect poetry, 'possums, watermelons, etc., they have discarded altogether, at least, as poetic material. This tendency will, no doubt, be regretted by the majority of white readers; and, indeed, it would be a distinct loss if the American Negro poets threw away this quaint and musical folk-speech as a medium of expression. And yet, after all, these poets are working through a problem not realized by the reader, and, perhaps, by many of these poets themselves not realized consciously. They are trying to break away from, not Negro dialect itself, but the limitations on Negro dialect imposed by the fixing effects of long convention.

The Negro in the United States has achieved or been placed in a certain artistic niche. When he is thought of artistically, it is as a happy-go-lucky, singing, shuffling, banjo-picking being or as a more or less pathetic figure. The picture of him is in a log cabin amid fields of cotton or along the levees. Negro dialect is naturally and by long association the exact instrument for voicing this phase of Negro life; and by that very exactness it is an instrument with but two full stops, humor and pathos. So even when he confines himself to purely racial themes, the Aframerican poet realizes that there are phases of Negro life in the United States which cannot be treated in the dialect either adequately or artistically. Take, for example, the phases rising out of life in Harlem, that most wonderful Negro city in the world. I do not deny that a Negro in a log cabin is more picturesque than a Negro in a Harlem flat, but the Negro in the Harlem flat is here, and he is but part of a group growing everywhere in the country, a group whose ideals are becoming increasingly more vital than those of the traditionally artistic group, even if its members are less picturesque.

What the colored poet in the United States needs to do is something like what Synge did for the Irish; he needs to find a form that will express the racial spirit by symbols from within rather than by symbols from without, such as the mere mutilation of English spelling and pronunciation. He needs a form that is freer and larger than dialect, but which will still hold the racial flavor; a form expressing the imagery, the idioms, the peculiar turns of thought, and the distinctive humor and pathos, too, of the Negro, but which will also be capable of voicing the deepest and highest emotions and aspirations, and allow of the widest range of subjects and the widest scope of treatment.

Negro dialect is at present a medium that is not capable of giving expression to the varied conditions of Negro life in America, and much less is it capable of giving the fullest interpretation of Negro character and psychology. This is no indictment against the dialect as dialect, but against the mould of convention in which Negro dialect in the United States has been set. In time these conventions may become lost, and the colored poet in the United States may sit down to write in dialect without feeling that his first line will put the general reader in a frame of mind which demands that the poem be humorous or pathetic. In the meantime, there is no reason why these poets should not continue to do the beautiful things that can be done, and done best, in the dialect.

In stating the need for Aframerican poets in the United States to work out a new and distinctive form of expression I do not wish to be understood to hold any theory that they should limit themselves to Negro poetry, to racial themes; the sooner they are able to write American poetry spontaneously, the better. Nevertheless, I believe that the richest contribution the Negro poet can make to the American literature of the future will be the fusion into it of his own individual artistic gifts.

Not many of the writers here included, except Dunbar, are known at all to the general reading public; and there is only one of these who has a widely recognized position in the American literary world, he is William Stanley Braithwaite. Mr. Braithwaite is not only unique in this respect, but he stands unique among all the Aframerican writers the United States has yet produced. He has gained his place, taking as the standard and measure for his work the identical standard and measure applied to American writers and American literature. He has asked for no allowances or rewards, either directly or indirectly, on account of his race.

Mr. Braithwaite is the author of two volumes of verses, lyrics of delicate and tenuous beauty. In his more recent and uncollected poems he shows himself more and more decidedly the mystic. But his place in American literature is due more to his work as a critic and anthologist than to his work as a poet. There is still another role he has played, that of friend of poetry and poets. It is a recognized fact that in the work which preceded the present revival of poetry in the United States, no one rendered more unremitting and valuable service than Mr. Braithwaite. And it can be said that no future study of American poetry of this age can be made without reference to Braithwaite.

Two authors included in the book are better known for their work in prose than in poetry: W.E.B. Du Bois whose well-known prose at its best is, however, impassioned and rhythmical; and Benjamin Brawley who is the author, among other works, of one of the best handbooks on the English drama that has yet appeared in America.

But the group of the new Negro poets, whose work makes up the bulk of this anthology, contains names destined to be known. Claude McKay, although still quite a young man, has already demonstrated his power, breadth and skill as a poet. Mr. McKay's breadth is as essential a part of his equipment as his power and skill. He demonstrates mastery of the three when as a Negro poet he pours out the bitterness and rebellion in his heart in those two sonnet-tragedies, "If We Must Die" and "To the White Fiends," in a manner that strikes terror; and when as a cosmic poet he creates the atmosphere and mood of poetic beauty in the absolute, as he does in "Spring in New Hampshire" and "The Harlem Dancer." Mr. McKay gives evidence that he has passed beyond the danger which threatens many of the new Negro poets—the danger of allowing the purely polemical phases of the race problem to choke their sense of artistry.

Mr. McKay's earliest work is unknown in this country. It consists of poems written and published in his native Jamaica. I was fortunate enough to run across this first volume, and I could not refrain from reproducing here one of the poems written in the West Indian Negro dialect. I have done this not only to illustrate the widest range of the poet's talent and to offer a comparison between the American and the West Indian dialects, but on account of the intrinsic worth of the poem itself. I was much tempted to introduce several more, in spite of the fact that they might require a glossary, because however greater work Mr. McKay may do he can never do anything more touching and charming than these poems in the Jamaica dialect.

Fenton Johnson is a young poet of the ultra-modern school who gives promise of greater work than he has yet done. Jessie Fauset shows that she possesses the lyric gift, and she works with care and finish. Miss Fauset is especially adept in her translations from the French. Georgia Douglas Johnson is a poet neither afraid nor ashamed of her emotions. She limits herself to the purely conventional forms, rhythms and rhymes, but through them she achieves striking effects. The principal theme of Mrs. Johnson's poems is the secret dread down in every woman's heart, the dread of the passing of youth and beauty, and with them love. An old theme, one which poets themselves have often wearied of, but which, like death, remains one of the imperishable themes on which is made the poetry that has moved men's hearts through all ages. In her ingenuously wrought verses, through sheer simplicity and spontaneousness, Mrs. Johnson often sounds a note of pathos or passion that will not fail to waken a response, except in those too sophisticated or cynical to respond to natural impulses. Of the half dozen or so of colored women writing creditable verse, Anne Spencer is the most modern and least obvious in her methods. Her lines are at times involved and turgid and almost cryptic, but she shows an originality which does not depend upon eccentricities. In her "Before the Feast of Shushan" she displays an opulence, the love of which has long been charged against the Negro as one of his naive and childish traits, but which in art may infuse a much needed color, warmth and spirit of abandon into American poetry.

John W. Holloway, more than any Negro poet writing in the dialect to-day, summons to his work the lilt, the spontaneity and charm of which Dunbar was the supreme master whenever he employed that medium. It is well to say a word here about the dialect poems of James Edwin Campbell. In dialect, Campbell was a precursor of Dunbar. A comparison of his idioms and phonetics with those of Dunbar reveals great differences. Dunbar is a shade or two more sophisticated and his phonetics approach nearer to a mean standard of the dialects spoken in the different sections. Campbell is more primitive and his phonetics are those of the dialect as spoken by the Negroes of the sea islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, which to this day remains comparatively close to its African roots, and is strikingly similar to the speech of the uneducated Negroes of the West Indies. An error that confuses many persons in reading or understanding Negro dialect is the idea that it is uniform. An ignorant Negro of the uplands of Georgia would have almost as much difficulty in understanding an ignorant sea island Negro as an Englishman would have. Not even in the dialect of any particular section is a given word always pronounced in precisely the same way. Its pronunciation depends upon the preceding and following sounds. Sometimes the combination permits of a liaison so close that to the uninitiated the sound of the word is almost completely lost.

The constant effort in Negro dialect is to elide all troublesome consonants and sounds. This negative effort may be after all only positive laziness of the vocal organs, but the result is a softening and smoothing which makes Negro dialect so delightfully easy for singers.

Daniel Webster Davis wrote dialect poetry at the time when Dunbar was writing. He gained great popularity, but it did not spread beyond his own race. Davis had unctuous humor, but he was crude. For illustration, note the vast stretch between his "Hog Meat" and Dunbar's "When de Co'n Pone's Hot," both of them poems on the traditional ecstasy of the Negro in contemplation of "good things" to eat.

It is regrettable that two of the most gifted writers included were cut off so early in life. R. C. Jamison and Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., died several years ago, both of them in their youth. Jamison was barely thirty at the time of his death, but among his poems there is one, at least, which stamps him as a poet of superior talent and lofty inspiration. "The Negro Soldiers" is a poem with the race problem as its theme, yet it transcends the limits of race and rises to a spiritual height that makes it one of the noblest poems of the Great War. Cotter died a mere boy of twenty, and the latter part of that brief period he passed in an invalid state. Some months before his death he published a thin volume of verses which were for the most part written on a sick bed. In this little volume Cotter showed fine poetic sense and a free and bold mastery over his material. A reading of Cotter's poems is certain to induce that mood in which one will regretfully speculate on what the young poet might have accomplished had he not been cut off so soon.

As intimated above, my original idea for this book underwent a change in the writing of the introduction. I first planned to select twenty-five to thirty poems which I judged to be up to a certain standard, and offer them with a few words of introduction and without comment. In the collection, as it grew to be, that "certain standard" has been broadened if not lowered; but I believe that this is offset by the advantage of the wider range given the reader and the student of the subject.

I offer this collection without making apology or asking allowance. I feel confident that the reader will find not only an earnest for the future, but actual achievement. The reader cannot but be impressed by the distance already covered. It is a long way from the plaints of George Horton to the invectives of Claude McKay, from the obviousness of Frances Harper to the complexness of Anne Spencer. Much ground has been covered, but more will yet be covered. It is this side of prophecy to declare that the undeniable creative genius of the Negro is destined to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to American poetry.

I wish to extend my thanks to Mr. Arthur A. Schomburg, who placed his valuable collection of books by Negro authors at my disposal. I wish also to acknowledge with thanks the kindness of Dodd, Mead & Co. for permitting the reprint of poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar; of the Cornhill Publishing Company for permission to reprint poems of Georgia Douglas Johnson, Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., Bertram Johnson and Waverley Carmichael; and of Neale & Co. for permission to reprint poems of John W. Holloway. I wish to thank Mr. Braithwaite for permission to use the included poems from his forthcoming volume, "Sandy Star and Willie Gee." And to acknowledge the courtesy of the following magazines: The Crisis, The Century Magazine, The Liberator, The Freeman, The Independent, Others, and Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.

James Weldon Johnson. New York City, 1921.



THE BOOK OF AMERICAN NEGRO POETRY



Paul Laurence Dunbar

A NEGRO LOVE SONG[1]

Seen my lady home las' night, Jump back, honey, jump back. Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight, Jump back, honey, jump back. Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh, Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye, An' a smile go flittin' by— Jump back, honey, jump back.

Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine, Jump back, honey, jump back. Mockin'-bird was singin' fine, Jump back, honey, jump back. An' my hea't was beatin' so, When I reached my lady's do', Dat I could n't ba' to go— Jump back, honey, jump back.

Put my ahm aroun' huh wais', Jump back, honey, jump back. Raised huh lips an' took a tase, Jump back, honey, jump back. Love me, honey, love me true? Love me well ez I love you? An' she answe'd, "Cose I do"— Jump back, honey, jump back.

[Footnote 1: Copyright by Dodd, Mead & Company.]

LITTLE BROWN BABY

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes, Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee. What you been doin', suh—makin' san' pies? Look at dat bib—You's ez du'ty ez me. Look at dat mouf—dat's merlasses, I bet; Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's. Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit, Bein' so sticky an' sweet—goodness lan's!

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes Who's pappy's darlin' an' who's pappy's chile? Who is it all de day nevah once tries Fu' to be cross, er once loses dat smile? Whah did you git dem teef? My, you's a scamp! Whah did dat dimple come f'om in yo' chin? Pappy do' know you—I b'lieves you's a tramp; Mammy, dis hyeah's some ol' straggler got in!

Let's th'ow him outen de do' in de san', We do' want stragglers a-layin' 'roun' hyeah; Let's gin him 'way to de big buggah-man; I know he's hidin' erroun' hyeah right neah. Buggah-man, buggah-man, come in de do', Hyeah's a bad boy you kin have fu' to eat. Mammy an' pappy do' want him no mo', Swaller him down f'om his haid to his feet!

Dah, now, I t'ought dat you'd hug me up close. Go back, ol' buggah, you sha'n't have dis boy. He ain't no tramp, ner no straggler, of co'se; He's pappy's pa'dner an' playmate an' joy. Come to you' pallet now—go to you' res'; Wisht you could allus know ease an' cleah skies; Wisht you could stay jes' a chile on my breas'— Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes!

SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT

Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; I look far out into the pregnant night, Where I can hear a solemn booming gun And catch the gleaming of a random light, That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.

My tearful eyes my soul's deep hurt are glassing; For I would hail and check that ship of ships. I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud, My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips, And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.

O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing, O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark! Is there no hope for me? Is there no way That I may sight and check that speeding bark Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?

LOVER'S LANE

Summah night an' sighin' breeze, 'Long de lovah's lane; Frien'ly, shadder-mekin' trees, 'Long de lovah's lane. White folks' wo'k all done up gran'— Me an' 'Mandy han'-in-han' Struttin' lak we owned de lan', 'Long de lovah's lane.

Owl a-settin' 'side de road, 'Long de lovah's lane, Lookin' at us lak he knowed Dis uz lovah's lane. Go on, hoot yo' Mou'nful tune, You ain' nevah loved in June, An' come hidin' f'om de moon Down in lovah's lane.

Bush it ben' an' nod an' sway, Down in lovah's lane, Try'n' to hyeah me whut I say 'Long de lovah's lane. But I whispahs low lak dis, An' my 'Mandy smile huh bliss— Mistah Bush he shek his fis', Down in lovah's lane.

Whut I keer ef day is long, Down in lovah's lane. I kin allus sing a song 'Long de lovah's lane. An' de wo'ds I hyeah an' say Meks up fu' de weary day Wen I's strollin' by de way, Down in lovah's lane.

An' dis t'ought will allus rise Down in lovah's lane; Wondah whethah in de skies Dey's a lovah's lane. Ef dey ain't, I tell you true, 'Ligion do look mighty blue, 'Cause I do' know whut I'd do 'Dout a lovah's lane.

THE DEBT

This is the debt I pay Just for one riotous day, Years of regret and grief. Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end— Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release— Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought, Poor was the loan at best— God! but the interest!

THE HAUNTED OAK

Pray why are you so bare, so bare, Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw, Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I saw in the moonlight dim and weird A guiltless victim's pains.

I bent me down to hear his sigh; I shook with his gurgling moan, And I trembled sore when they rode away, And left him here alone.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime, And set him fast in jail: Oh, why does the dog howl all night long, And why does the night wind wail?

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath, And he raised his hand to the sky; But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear, And the steady tread drew nigh.

Who is it rides by night, by night, Over the moonlit road? And what is the spur that keeps the pace, What is the galling goad?

And now they beat at the prison door, "Ho, keeper, do not stay! We are friends of him whom you hold within, And we fain would take him away

From those who ride fast on our heels With mind to do him wrong; They have no care for his innocence, And the rope they bear is long."

They have fooled the jailer with lying words, They have fooled the man with lies; The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn, And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail, And hard and fast they ride, And the leader laughs low down in his throat, As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black, And the doctor one of white, And the minister, with his oldest son, Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now? 'Tis but a little space, And the time will come when these shall dread The mem'ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark, And the weight of him in my grain, I feel in the throe of his final woe The touch of my own last pain.

And never more shall leaves come forth On a bough that bears the ban; I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead, From the curse of a guiltless man.

And ever the judge rides by, rides by, And goes to hunt the deer, And ever another rides his soul In the guise of a mortal fear.

And ever the man he rides me hard, And never a night stays he; For I feel his curse as a haunted bough On the trunk of a haunted tree.

WHEN DE CO'N PONE'S HOT

Dey is times in life when Nature Seems to slip a cog an' go, Jes' a-rattlin' down creation, Lak an ocean's overflow; When de worl' jes' stahts a-spinnin' Lak a picaninny's top, An' yo' cup o' joy is brimmin' 'Twell it seems about to slop, An' you feel jes' lak a racah, Dat is trainin' fu' to trot— When yo' mammy says de blessin' An' de co'n pone's hot.

When you set down at de table, Kin' o' weary lak an' sad, An' you'se jes' a little tiahed An' purhaps a little mad; How yo' gloom tu'ns into gladness, How yo' joy drives out de doubt When de oven do' is opened, An' de smell comes po'in' out; Why, de 'lectric light o' Heaven Seems to settle on de spot, When yo' mammy says de blessin' An' de co'n pone's hot.

When de cabbage pot is steamin' An' de bacon good an' fat, When de chittlins is a-sputter'n' So's to show you whah dey's at; Tek away yo' sody biscuit, Tek away yo' cake an' pie, Fu' de glory time is comin', An' it's 'proachin' mighty nigh, An' you want to jump an' hollah, Dough you know you'd bettah not, When yo' mammy says de blessin' An' de co'n pone's hot.

I have hyeahd o' lots o' sermons, An' I've hyeahd o' lots o' prayers, An' I've listened to some singin' Dat has tuck me up de stairs Of de Glory-Lan' an' set me Jes' below de Mastah's th'one, An' have lef my hea't a-singin' In a happy aftah tone; But dem wu'ds so sweetly murmured Seem to tech de softes' spot, When my mammy says de blessin', An' de co'n pone's hot.

A DEATH SONG

Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass, Whah de branch'll go a-singin' as it pass An' w'en I's a-layin' low, I kin hyeah it as it go Singin', "Sleep, my honey, tek yo' res' at las'."

Lay me nigh to whah hit meks a little pool, An' de watah stan's so quiet lak an' cool, Whah de little birds in spring, Ust to come an' drink an' sing, An' de chillen waded on dey way to school.

Let me settle w'en my shouldahs draps dey load Nigh enough to hyeah de noises in de road; Fu' I t'ink de las' long res' Gwine to soothe my sperrit bes' If I's layin' 'mong de t'ings I's allus knowed.



James Edwin Campbell

NEGRO SERENADE

O, de light-bugs glimmer down de lane, Merlindy! Merlindy! O, de whip'-will callin' notes ur pain— Merlindy, O, Merlindy! O, honey lub, my turkle dub, Doan' you hyuh my bawnjer ringin', While de night-dew falls an' de ho'n owl calls By de ol' ba'n gate Ise singin'.

O, Miss 'Lindy, doan' you hyuh me, chil', Merlindy! Merlindy! My lub fur you des dribe me wil'— Merlindy, O, Merlindy! I'll sing dis night twel broad day-light, Ur bu's' my froat wid tryin', 'Less you come down, Miss 'Lindy Brown, An' stops dis ha't f'um sighin'!

DE CUNJAH MAN

O chillen, run, de Cunjah man, Him mouf ez beeg ez fryin' pan, Him yurs am small, him eyes am raid, Him hab no toof een him ol' haid, Him hab him roots, him wu'k him trick, Him roll him eye, him mek you sick— De Cunjah man, de Cunjah man, O chillen, run, de Cunjah man!

Him hab ur ball ob raid, raid ha'r, Him hide it un' de kitchen sta'r, Mam Jude huh pars urlong dat way, An' now huh hab ur snaik, de say. Him wrop ur roun' huh buddy tight, Huh eyes pop out, ur orful sight— De Cunjah man, de Cunjah man, O chillen, run, de Cunjah man!

Miss Jane, huh dribe him f'um huh do', An' now huh hens woan' lay no mo'; De Jussey cow huh done fall sick, Hit all done by de Cunjah trick. Him put ur root un' 'Lijah's baid, An' now de man he sho' am daid— De Cunjah man, de Cunjah man, O chillen, run, de Cunjah man!

Me see him stan' de yudder night Right een de road een white moon-light; Him toss him arms, him whirl him 'roun', Him stomp him foot urpon de groun'; De snaiks come crawlin', one by one, Me hyuh um hiss, me break an' run— De Cunjah man, de Cunjah man, O chillen, run, de Cunjah man!

UNCLE EPH'S BANJO SONG

Clean de ba'n an' sweep de flo', Sing, my bawnjer, sing! We's gwine ter dawnce dis eb'nin' sho', Ring, my bawnjer, ring! Den hits up de road an' down de lane, Hurry, niggah, you miss de train; De yaller gal she dawnce so neat, De yaller gal she look so sweet, Ring, my bawnjer, ring!

De moon come up, de sun go down, Sing, my bawnjer, sing! De niggahs am all come f'um town, Ring, my bawnjer, ring! Den hits roun' de hill an' froo de fiel'— Lookout dar, niggah, doan' you steal! De milyuns on dem vines am green, De moon am bright, O you'll be seen, Ring, my bawnjer, ring!

OL' DOC' HYAR

Ur ol' Hyar lib in ur house on de hill, He hunner yurs ol' an' nebber wuz ill; He yurs dee so long an' he eyes so beeg, An' he laigs so spry dat he dawnce ur jeeg; He lib so long dat he know ebbry tings 'Bout de beas'ses dat walks an' de bu'ds dat sings— Dis Ol' Doc' Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill.

He doctah fur all de beas'ses an' bu'ds— He put on he specs an' he use beeg wu'ds, He feel dee pu's' den he look mighty wise, He pull out he watch an' he shet bofe eyes; He grab up he hat an' grab up he cane, Den—"blam!" go de do'—he gone lak de train, Dis Ol' Doc' Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill.

Mistah Ba'r fall sick—dee sont fur Doc' Hyar, "O, Doctah, come queeck, an' see Mr. B'ar; He mighty nigh daid des sho' ez you b'on!" "Too much ur young peeg, too much ur green co'n," Ez he put on he hat, said Ol' Doc' Hyar; "I'll tek 'long meh lawnce, an' lawnce Mistah B'ar," Said Ol' Doc' Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill.

Mistah B'ar he groaned, Mistah B'ar he growled, W'ile de ol' Miss B'ar an' de chillen howled; Doctah Hyar tuk out he sha'p li'l lawnce, An' pyu'ced Mistah B'ar twel he med him prawnce Den grab up he hat an' grab up he cane "Blam!" go de do' an' he gone lak de train, Dis Ol' Doc' Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill.

But de vay naix day Mistah B'ar he daid; Wen dee tell Doc' Hyar, he des scratch he haid: "Ef pahsons git well ur pahsons git wu's, Money got ter come een de Ol' Hyar's pu's; Not wut folkses does, but fur wut dee know Does de folkses git paid"—an' Hyar larfed low, Dis Ol' Doc' Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een de mighty fine house on de mighty high hill!

WHEN OL' SIS' JUDY PRAY

When ol' Sis' Judy pray, De teahs come stealin' down my cheek, De voice ur God widin me speak'; I see myse'f so po' an' weak, Down on my knees de cross I seek, When ol' Sis' Judy pray.

When ol' Sis' Judy pray, De thun'ers ur Mount Sin-a-i Comes rushin' down f'um up on high— De Debbil tu'n his back an' fly While sinnahs loud fur pa'don cry, When ol' Sis' Judy pray.

When ol' Sis' Judy pray, Ha'd sinnahs trimble in dey seat Ter hyuh huh voice in sorro 'peat; (While all de chu'ch des sob an' weep) "O Shepa'd, dese, dy po' los' sheep!" When ol' Sis' Judy pray.

When ol' Sis' Judy pray, De whole house hit des rock an' moan Ter see huh teahs an' hyuh huh groan; Dar's somepin' in Sis' Judy's tone Dat melt all ha'ts dough med ur stone When ol' Sis' Judy pray.

When ol' Sis' Judy pray, Salvation's light comes pourin' down— Hit fill de chu'ch an' all de town— Why, angels' robes go rustlin' 'roun', An' hebben on de Yurf am foun', When ol' Sis' Judy pray.

When ol' Sis' Judy pray, My soul go sweepin' up on wings, An' loud de chu'ch wid "Glory!" rings, An' wide de gates ur Jahsper swings Twel you hyuh ha'ps wid golding strings, When ol' Sis' Judy pray.

COMPENSATION

O, rich young lord, thou ridest by With looks of high disdain; It chafes me not thy title high, Thy blood of oldest strain. The lady riding at thy side Is but in name thy promised bride, Ride on, young lord, ride on!

Her father wills and she obeys, The custom of her class; 'Tis Land not Love the trothing sways— For Land he sells his lass. Her fair white hand, young lord, is thine, Her soul, proud fool, her soul is mine, Ride on, young lord, ride on!

No title high my father bore; The tenant of thy farm, He left me what I value more: Clean heart, clear brain, strong arm And love for bird and beast and bee And song of lark and hymn of sea, Ride on, young lord, ride on!

The boundless sky to me belongs, The paltry acres thine; The painted beauty sings thy songs, The lavrock lilts me mine; The hot-housed orchid blooms for thee, The gorse and heather bloom for me, Ride on, young lord, ride on!



James D. Corrothers

AT THE CLOSED GATE OF JUSTICE

To be a Negro in a day like this Demands forgiveness. Bruised with blow on blow, Betrayed, like him whose woe dimmed eyes gave bliss Still must one succor those who brought one low, To be a Negro in a day like this.

To be a Negro in a day like this Demands rare patience—patience that can wait In utter darkness. 'Tis the path to miss, And knock, unheeded, at an iron gate, To be a Negro in a day like this.

To be a Negro in a day like this Demands strange loyalty. We serve a flag Which is to us white freedom's emphasis. Ah! one must love when Truth and Justice lag, To be a Negro in a day like this.

To be a Negro in a day like this— Alas! Lord God, what evil have we done? Still shines the gate, all gold and amethyst, But I pass by, the glorious goal unwon, "Merely a Negro"—in a day like this!

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

He came, a youth, singing in the dawn Of a new freedom, glowing o'er his lyre, Refining, as with great Apollo's fire, His people's gift of song. And thereupon, This Negro singer, come to Helicon Constrained the masters, listening to admire, And roused a race to wonder and aspire, Gazing which way their honest voice was gone, With ebon face uplit of glory's crest. Men marveled at the singer, strong and sweet, Who brought the cabin's mirth, the tuneful night, But faced the morning, beautiful with light, To die while shadows yet fell toward the west, And leave his laurels at his people's feet.

Dunbar, no poet wears your laurels now; None rises, singing, from your race like you. Dark melodist, immortal, though the dew Fell early on the bays upon your brow, And tinged with pathos every halcyon vow And brave endeavor. Silence o'er you threw Flowerets of love. Or, if an envious few Of your own people brought no garlands, how Could Malice smite him whom the gods had crowned? If, like the meadow-lark, your flight was low Your flooded lyrics half the hilltops drowned; A wide world heard you, and it loved you so It stilled its heart to list the strains you sang, And o'er your happy songs its plaudits rang.

THE NEGRO SINGER

O'er all my song the image of a face Lieth, like shadow on the wild sweet flowers. The dream, the ecstasy that prompts my powers; The golden lyre's delights bring little grace To bless the singer of a lowly race. Long hath this mocked me: aye in marvelous hours, When Hera's gardens gleamed, or Cynthia's bowers, Or Hope's red pylons, in their far, hushed place! But I shall dig me deeper to the gold; Fetch water, dripping, over desert miles, From clear Nyanzas and mysterious Niles Of love; and sing, nor one kind act withhold. So shall men know me, and remember long, Nor my dark face dishonor any song.

THE ROAD TO THE BOW

Ever and ever anon, After the black storm, the eternal, beauteous bow! Brother, to rosy-painted mists that arch beyond, Blithely I go.

My brows men laureled and my lyre Twined with immortal ivy for one little rippling song; My "House of Golden Leaves" they praised and "passionate fire"— But, Friend, the way is long!

Onward and onward, up! away! Though Fear flaunt all his banners in my face, And my feet stumble, lo! the Orphean Day! Forward by God's grace!

These signs are still before me: "Fear," "Danger," "Unprecedented," and I hear black "No" Still thundering, and "Churl." Good Friend, I rest me here— Then to the glittering bow!

Loometh and cometh Hate in wrath, Mailed Wrong, swart Servitude and Shame with bitter rue, Nathless a Negro poet's feet must tread the path The winged god knew.

Thus, my true Brother, dream-led, I Forefend the anathema, following the span. I hold my head as proudly high As any man.

IN THE MATTER OF TWO MEN

One does such work as one will not, And well each knows the right; Though the white storm howls, or the sun is hot, The black must serve the white. And it's, oh, for the white man's softening flesh, While the black man's muscles grow! Well I know which grows the mightier, I know; full well I know.

The white man seeks the soft, fat place, And he moves and he works by rule. Ingenious grows the humbler race In Oppression's prodding school. And it's, oh, for a white man gone to seed, While the Negro struggles so! And I know which race develops most, I know; yes, well I know.

The white man rides in a palace car, And the Negro rides "Jim Crow." To damn the other with bolt and bar, One creepeth so low; so low! And it's, oh, for a master's nose in the mire, While the humbled hearts o'erflow! Well I know whose soul grows big at this, And whose grows small; I know!

The white man leases out his land, And the Negro tills the same. One works; one loafs and takes command; But I know who wins the game! And it's, oh, for the white man's shrinking soil, As the black's rich acres grow! Well I know how the signs point out at last, I know; ah, well I know!

The white man votes for his color's sake, While the black, for his is barred; (Though "ignorance" is the charge they make), But the black man studies hard. And it's, oh, for the white man's sad neglect, For the power of his light let go! So, I know which man must win at last, I know! Ah, Friend, I know!

AN INDIGNATION DINNER

Dey was hard times jes fo' Christmas round our neighborhood one year; So we held a secret meetin', whah de white folks couldn't hear, To 'scuss de situation, an' to see what could be done Towa'd a fust-class Christmas dinneh an' a little Christmas fun.

Rufus Green, who called de meetin', ris an' said: "In dis here town, An' throughout de land, de white folks is a-tryin' to keep us down." S' 'e: "Dey's bought us, sold us, beat us; now dey 'buse us 'ca'se we's free; But when dey tetch my stomach, dey's done gone too fur foh me!

"Is I right?" "You sho is, Rufus!" roared a dozen hungry throats. "Ef you'd keep a mule a-wo'kin', don't you tamper wid his oats. Dat's sense," continued Rufus. "But dese white folks nowadays Has done got so close and stingy you can't live on what dey pays.

"Here 'tis Christmas-time, an', folkses, I's indignant 'nough to choke. Whah's our Christmas dinneh comin' when we's 'mos' completely broke? I can't hahdly 'fo'd a toothpick an' a glass o' water. Mad? Say, I'm desp'ret! Dey jes better treat me nice, dese white folks had!"

Well, dey 'bused de white folks scan'lous, till old Pappy Simmons ris, Leanin' on his cane to s'pote him, on account his rheumatis', An' s' 'e: "Chilun, whut's dat wintry wind a-sighin' th'ough de street 'Bout yo' wasted summeh wages? But, no matter, we mus' eat.

"Now, I seed a beau'ful tuhkey on a certain gemmun's fahm. He's a-growin' fat an' sassy, an' a-struttin' to a chahm. Chickens, sheeps, hogs, sweet pertaters—all de craps is fine dis year; All we needs is a committee foh to tote de goodies here."

Well, we lit right in an' voted dat it was a gran idee, An' de dinneh we had Christmas was worth trabblin' miles to see; An' we eat a full an' plenty, big an' little, great an' small, Not beca'se we was dishonest, but indignant, sah. Dat's all.

DREAM AND THE SONG

So oft our hearts, beloved lute, In blossomy haunts of song are mute; So long we pore, 'mid murmurings dull, O'er loveliness unutterable. So vain is all our passion strong! The dream is lovelier than the song.

The rose thought, touched by words, doth turn Wan ashes. Still, from memory's urn, The lingering blossoms tenderly Refute our wilding minstrelsy. Alas! we work but beauty's wrong! The dream is lovelier than the song.

Yearned Shelley o'er the golden flame? Left Keats for beauty's lure, a name But "writ in water"? Woe is me! To grieve o'er flowerful faery. My Phasian doves are flown so long— The dream is lovelier than the song!

Ah, though we build a bower of dawn, The golden-winged bird is gone, And morn may gild, through shimmering leaves, Only the swallow-twittering eaves. What art may house or gold prolong A dream far lovelier than a song?

The lilting witchery, the unrest Of winged dreams, is in our breast; But ever dear Fulfilment's eyes Gaze otherward. The long-sought prize, My lute, must to the gods belong. The dream is lovelier than the song.



Daniel Webster Davis

'WEH DOWN SOUF

O, de birds ar' sweetly singin', 'Weh down Souf, An' de banjer is a-ringin', 'Weh down Souf; An' my heart it is a-sighin', Whil' de moments am a-flyin', Fur my hom' I am a-cryin', 'Weh down Souf.

Dar de pickaninnies 's playin', 'Weh down Souf, An' fur dem I am a-prayin', 'Weh down Souf; An' when I gits sum munny, Yo' kin bet I'm goin', my hunny, Fur de lan' dat am so sunny, 'Weh down Souf.

Whil' de win' up here's a-blowin', 'Weh down Souf De corn is sweetly growin', 'Weh down Souf. Dey tells me here ub freedum, But I ain't a-gwine to heed um, But I'se gwine fur to lebe um, Fur 'weh down Souf.

I bin up here a-wuckin', From 'weh down Souf, An' I ain't a bin a-shurkin'— I'm frum 'weh down Souf; But I'm gittin' mighty werry, An' de days a-gittin' drerry, An' I'm hongry, O, so berry, Fur my hom' down Souf.

O, de moon dar shines de brighter, 'Weh down Souf, An' I know my heart is lighter, 'Weh down Souf; An' de berry thought brings pledjur, I'll be happy dar 'dout medjur, Fur dar I hab my tredjur, 'Weh down Souf.

HOG MEAT

Deze eatin' folks may tell me ub de gloriz ub spring lam', An' de toofsumnis ub tuckey et wid cel'ry an' wid jam; Ub beef-st'ak fried wid unyuns, an' sezoned up so fine— But you' jes' kin gimme hog-meat, an' I'm happy all de time.

When de fros' is on de pun'kin an' de sno'-flakes in de ar', I den begin rejoicin'—hog-killin' time is near; An' de vizhuns ub de fucher den fill my nightly dreams, Fur de time is fas' a-comin' fur de 'lishus pork an' beans.

We folks dat's frum de kuntry may be behin' de sun— We don't like city eatin's, wid beefsteaks dat ain' done— 'Dough mutton chops is splendid, an' dem veal cutlits fine, To me 'tain't like a sphar-rib, or gret big chunk ub chine.

Jes' talk to me 'bout hog-meat, ef yo' want to see me pleased, Fur biled wid beans tiz gor'jus, or made in hog-head cheese; An' I could jes' be happy, 'dout money, cloze or house, Wid plenty yurz an' pig feet made in ol'-fashun "souse."

I 'fess I'm only humun, I hab my joys an' cares— Sum days de clouds hang hebby, sum days de skies ar' fair; But I forgib my in'miz, my heart is free frum hate, When my bread is filled wid cracklins an' dar's chidlins on my plate.

'Dough 'possum meat is glo'yus wid 'taters in de pan, But put 'longside pork sassage it takes a backward stan'; Ub all yer fancy eatin's, jes gib to me fur mine Sum souse or pork or chidlins, sum sphar-rib, or de chine.



William H.A. Moore

DUSK SONG

The garden is very quiet to-night, The dusk has gone with the Evening Star, And out on the bay a lone ship light Makes a silver pathway over the bar Where the sea sings low.

I follow the light with an earnest eye, Creeping along to the thick far-away, Until it fell in the depths of the deep, dark sky With the haunting dream of the dusk of day And its lovely glow.

Long nights, long nights and the whisperings of new ones, Flame the line of the pathway down to the sea With the halo of new dreams and the hallow of old ones, And they bring magic light to my love reverie And a lover's regret.

Tender sorrow for loss of a soft murmured word, Tender measure of doubt in a faint, aching heart, Tender listening for wind-songs in the tree heights heard When you and I were of the dusks a part, Are with me yet.

I pray for faith to the noble spirit of Space, I sound the cosmic depths for the measure of glory Which will bring to this earth the imperishable race Of whom Beauty dreamed in the soul-toned story The Prophets told.

Silence and love and deep wonder of stars Dust-silver the heavens from west to east, From south to north, and in a maze of bars Invisible I wander far from the feast As night grows old.

Half blind is my vision I know to the truth, My ears are half deaf to the voice of the tear That touches the silences as Autumn's ruth Steals thru the dusks of each returning year A goodly friend.

The Autumn, then Winter and wintertime's grief! But the weight of the snow is the glistening gift Which loving brings to the rose and its leaf, For the days of the roses glow in the drift And never end.

* * * * *

The moon has come. Wan and pallid is she. The spell of half memories, the touch of half tears, And the wounds of worn passions she brings to me With all the tremor of the far-off years And their mad wrong.

Yet the garden is very quiet to-night, The dusk has long gone with the Evening Star, And out on the bay the moon's wan light Lays a silver pathway beyond the bar, Dear heart, pale and long.

IT WAS NOT FATE

It was not fate which overtook me, Rather a wayward, wilful wind That blew hot for awhile And then, as the even shadows came, blew cold. What pity it is that a man grown old in life's dreaming Should stop, e'en for a moment, to look into a woman's eyes. And I forgot! Forgot that one's heart must be steeled against the east wind. Life and death alike come out of the East: Life as tender as young grass, Death as dreadful as the sight of clotted blood. I shall go back into the darkness, Not to dream but to seek the light again. I shall go by paths, mayhap, On roads that wind around the foothills Where the plains are bare and wild And the passers-by come few and far between. I want the night to be long, the moon blind, The hills thick with moving memories, And my heart beating a breathless requiem For all the dead days I have lived. When the Dawn comes—Dawn, deathless, dreaming— I shall will that my soul must be cleansed of hate, I shall pray for strength to hold children close to my heart, I shall desire to build houses where the poor will know shelter, comfort, beauty. And then may I look into a woman's eyes And find holiness, love and the peace which passeth understanding.



W.E. Burghardt Du Bois

A LITANY OF ATLANTA

Done at Atlanta, in the Day of Death, 1906

O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days— Hear us, good Lord!

Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery in Thy sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front Thy heaven, O God, crying: We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!

We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men. When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed: curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home. Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!

And yet whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these devils? Who nursed them in crime and fed them on injustice? Who ravished and debauched their mothers and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their crime, and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity? Thou knowest, good God!

Is this Thy justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence, and the innocent crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty? Justice, O judge of men!

Wherefore do we pray? Is not the God of the fathers dead? Have not seers seen in Heaven's halls Thine hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of endless dead? Awake, Thou that sleepest!

Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, thru blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free—far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy and chaste prostitution of this shameful speck of dust! Turn again, O Lord, leave us not to perish in our sin!

From lust of body and lust of blood Great God, deliver us!

From lust of power and lust of gold, Great God, deliver us!

From the leagued lying of despot and of brute, Great God, deliver us!

A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack and cry of death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars when church spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance! Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!

In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they—did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with bloody jaws: Cease from Crime! The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one. Turn again our captivity, O Lord!