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diff --git a/old/60003-0.txt b/old/60003-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2d71764..0000000 --- a/old/60003-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9284 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Negro Poets and Their Poems, by Robert T. Kerlin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Negro Poets and Their Poems - -Author: Robert T. Kerlin - -Release Date: July 28, 2019 [EBook #60003] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - NEGRO POETS - AND THEIR POEMS - -[Illustration: - -EMANCIPATION -By -META WARRICK FULLER] - - - - - NEGRO POETS - AND THEIR POEMS - - BY - ROBERT T. KERLIN - AUTHOR OF “THE VOICE OF THE NEGRO” - - Still comes the Perfect Thing to man - As came the olden gods, in dreams. - J. MORD ALLEN. - - _ILLUSTRATED_ - - - ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS, INC., - WASHINGTON, D. C. - - - Copyright, 1923, - By - THE ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS, INC. - - - - -To the Black and Unknown Bards who gave to the world the priceless -treasure of those “canticles of love and woe,” the camp-meeting -Spirituals; more particularly, to those untaught singers of the old -plantations of the South, whose melodious lullabies to the babes of both -races entered with genius-quickening power into the souls of Poe and -Lanier, Dunbar and Cotter: to them, for whom any monument in stone or -bronze were but mockery, I dedicate this monument of verse, budded by -the children of their vision. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -PREFACE xiii - - -CHAPTER I - -THE PRESENT-DAY NEGRO HERITAGE OF SONG 1 - -I. Untaught Melodies: Folk Song 4 - - 1. The Spirituals 6 - - 2. The Seculars 12 - -II. The Earlier Poetry of Art 20 - - 1. Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley 20 - - 2. Charles L. Reason 24 - - 3. George Moses Horton 25 - - 4. Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper 26 - - 5. James Madison Bell and Albery A. Whitman 32 - - 6. Paul Laurence Dunbar 37 - - 7. J. Mord Allen 48 - - -CHAPTER II - -THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE OF THE NEGRO 51 - - I. A Glance at the Field 51 - -II. Some Representatives of the Present Era 70 - - 1. The Cotters, Father and Son 70 - - 2. James David Corrothers 85 - - 3. A Group of Singing Johnsons: - - James Weldon Johnson 90 - - Charles Bertram Johnson 95 - - Fenton Johnson 99 - - Adolphus Johnson 104 - - 4. William Stanley Braithwaite 105 - - 5. George Reginald Margetson 109 - - 6. William Moore 111 - - 7. Joshua Henry Jones, Jr. 113 - - 8. Walter Everette Hawkins 119 - - 9. Claude McKay 126 - - 10. Leslie Pinckney Hill 131 - - -CHAPTER III - -THE HEART OF NEGRO WOMANHOOD 139 - - 1. Miss Eva A. Jessye 139 - - 2. Mrs. J. W. Hammond 142 - - 3. Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson 144 - - 4. Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson 148 - - 5. Miss Angelina W. Grimké 152 - - 6. Mrs. Anne Spencer 156 - - 7. Miss Jessie Fauset 160 - - -CHAPTER IV - -AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 163 - -I. Per Aspera 163 - - 1. Edward Smythe Jones 163 - - 2. Raymond Garfield Dandridge 169 - - 3. George Marion McClellan 173 - - 4. Charles P. Wilson 179 - - 5. Leon R. Harris 180 - - 6. Irvin W. Underhill 185 - -II. Ad Astra 187 - - 1. James C. Hughes 187 - - 2. Leland Milton Fisher 189 - - 3. W. Clarence Jordan 190 - - 4. Roscoe C. Jamison 191 - - -CHAPTER V - -THE NEW FORMS OF POETRY 197 - -I. Free Verse 197 - - 1. Will Sexton 197 - - 2. Andrea Razafkeriefo 197 - - 3. Langston Hughes 200 - -II. Prose Poems 201 - - 1. W. E. Burghardt DuBois 201 - - 2. Kelly Miller 206 - - 3. Charles H. Conner 209 - - 4. William Edgar Bailey 213 - - 5. R. Nathaniel Dett 214 - - -CHAPTER VI - -DIALECT VERSE 218 - - 1. Waverly Turner Carmichael 219 - - 2. Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 220 - - 3. Raymond Garfield Dandridge 221 - - 4. Sterling M. Means 222 - - 5. J. Mord Allen 223 - - 6. James Weldon Johnson 226 - - 7. Theodore Henry Shackleford 228 - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE POETRY OF PROTEST 229 - - Lucian B. Watkins 237 - - -CHAPTER VIII - -MISCELLANEOUS 243 - - I. Eulogistic Poems 243 - -II. Commemorative and Occasional Poems 254 - - -INDEX OF AUTHORS, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 269 - - -INDEX OF TITLES 281 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - -EMANCIPATION, BY META V. W. FULLER _Frontispiece_ - - PAGE - -INSPIRATION, BY META V. W. FULLER 11 - -DANCERS 16 - -PHILLIS WHEATLEY 23 - -CHARLES L. REASON 24 - -FRANCES E. W. HARPER 27 - -JAMES MADISON BELL 33 - -PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR 38 - -ETHIOPIA--AWAKENING, BY META V. W. FULLER 45 - -JOSEPH S. COTTER, SR. 70 - -JOSEPH S. COTTER, JR. 81 - -J. D. CORROTHERS 86 - -JAMES WELDON JOHNSON 91 - -CHARLES BERTRAM JOHNSON 95 - -GEORGE REGINALD MARGETSON 110 - -JOSHUA HENRY JONES, JR. 113 - -WALTER EVERETTE HAWKINS 121 - -CLAUDE MCKAY 126 - -LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL 131 - -EVA A. JESSYE 139 - -MRS. J. W. HAMMOND 142 - -ALICE DUNBAR NELSON 145 - -MRS. G. D. JOHNSON 148 - -ANGELINA GRIMKÉ 152 - -MRS. ANNE SPENCER 157 - -JESSIE REDMON FAUSET 160 - -EDWARD SMYTHE JONES 163 - -RAYMOND G. DANDRIDGE 169 - -GEORGE M. MCCLELLAN 173 - -LEON R. HARRIS 181 - -IRVIN W. UNDERHILL 185 - -ROSCOE C. JAMISON 192 - -LANGSTON HUGHES 199 - -W. E. B. DU BOIS 201 - -KELLY MILLER 206 - -CHARLES H. CONNER 210 - -R. NATHANIEL DETT 215 - -THEODORE H. SHACKLEFORD 228 - -EQUALITY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, FROM THE SCHURZ MONUMENT 229 - -LUCIAN B. WATKINS 237 - -MAE SMITH JOHNSON 243 - - - - -PREFACE - - -_Ad astra per aspera_--that is the old Roman adage. Magnificent is it, -and magnificently is it being in these days exemplified by the American -Negroes, particularly by the increasing number of educated and talented -American Negroes, and most particularly by those who feel the urge to -express in song the emotions and aspirations of their people. A -surprisingly large number is this class. Without exhausting the -possibilities of selection I have quoted in this anthology of -contemporary Negro poetry sixty odd writers of tolerable verse that -exhibits, besides form, at least one fundamental quality of poetry, -namely, passion. - -The mere number, large as it is, would of course not signify by itself. -Nor does the phrase “tolerable verse,” cautiously chosen, seem to -promise much. What this multitude means, and whether the verse be worthy -of a more complimentary description, I leave to the reader’s judgment. -Quality of expression and character of content are of course the -prepotent considerations. - -While, in a preliminary section, I have passed in review the poetry of -the Negro up to and including Dunbar, not neglecting the old religious -songs of the plantation, or “Spirituals,” and the dance, play, and -nursery rhymes, or “Seculars,” yet strictly speaking this is a -representation of new Negro voices, an anthology of present-day Negro -verse, with biographical items and critical, or at least appreciative -comment. - -I wish most heartily to express my obligations to the publishers and -authors of the volumes I have drawn upon for selections. They are named -in the Index and Biographical and Bibliographical Notes at the end of -the text. But for the reader’s convenience I collect their names here: - -Richard E. Badger, publisher of Walter Everette Hawkins’s _Chords and -Discords_; A. B. Caldwell, Atlanta, Ga., publisher of Sterling M. Means’ -_The Deserted Cabin and Other Poems_; the Cornhill Company, publishers -of Waverley Turner Carmichael’s _From the Heart of a Folk_; Joseph S. -Cotter’s _The Band of Gideon_; Georgia Douglas Johnson’s _The Heart of a -Woman_; Charles Bertram Johnson’s _Songs of My People_; James Weldon -Johnson’s _Fifty Years and Other Poems_; Joshua Henry Jones’s _Poems of -the Four Seas_; Dodd, Mead and Company, publishers of Dunbar’s _Poems_; -the Grafton Press, publishers of H. Cordelia Ray’s _Poems_; Harcourt, -Brace & Company, publishers of W. E. Burghardt DuBois’s _Darkwater_; -Pritchard and Ovington’s _The Upward Path_; the Macmillan Company, -publishers of Thomas W. Talley’s _Negro Folk Rhymes_; the Neale -Publishing Company, publishers of Kelley Miller’s _Out of the House of -Bondage_; J. L. Nichols & Company, Naperville, Ill., publishers of Mrs. -Dunbar-Nelson’s _The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer_, and _The Life and -Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar_; the Stratford Company, publishers of -Joshua Henry Jones’s _The Heart of the World and Other Poems_; and -Leslie Pinckney Hill’s _The Wings of Oppression_. It is with their kind -permission I am privileged to use selections from the books named. To -_The Crisis_, _The Favorite Magazine_, and _The Messenger_, I am -indebted for several selections, which I gratefully acknowledge. - -To readers who are disposed to study the poetry of the Negro I would -commend Dr. James Weldon Johnson’s _The Book of American Negro Poetry_ -(Harcourt, Brace & Co.) and Mr. Arthur A. Schomburg’s _A Bibliographical -Checklist of American Negro Poetry_ (Charles F. Hartman, New York). I am -indebted to both these books and authors. To Mr. Schomburg I am also -indebted for the loan of many of the pictures of the earlier poets. - - R. T. K. - -West Chester, Pa. -March 22, 1923. - - - - -NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE NEGROES HERITAGE OF SONG - - -As an empire may grow up within an empire without observation so a -republic of letters within a republic of letters. That thing is -happening today in this land of ours. A literature of significance on -many accounts, and not without various and considerable merits. Its -producers are Negroes. Culture, talent, genius--or something very like -it--are theirs. Nor is it “the mantle of Dunbar” they wrap themselves -in, but an unborrowed singing robe, that better fits “the New Negro.” -The list of names in poetry alone would stretch out, were I to start -telling them over, until I should bring suspicion upon myself as no -trustworthy reporter. Besides, the mere names would mean nothing, since, -as intimated, this little republic has grown up unobserved in our big -one. - -It may be more for the promise held forth by their thin little volumes -than for the intrinsic merit of their performance that we should esteem -the verse-makers represented in this survey of contemporary Negro -poetry. Yet on many grounds they should receive candid attention, both -from the students of literature and the students of sociology. -Recognition of real literary merit will be accorded by the one class of -students, and recognition of new aspects of the most serious race -problem of the ages will be forced upon the second class. Justification -enough for the present survey and exhibition will be acknowledged by all -who are earnestly concerned either with literature or with life. - -Perhaps, unconsciously, in my comments and estimates I have not -steadfastly kept before me absolute standards of poetry. But where and -when was this ever done? Doubtless in critiques of master poets by -master critics, and only there. In writing of contemporary verse, by -courtesy called poetry, we compromise, our estimates are relative, we -make allowances, our approvals and disapprovals are toned according to -the known circumstances of production. And this is right. - -If the prospective reader opens this volume with the demand in his mind -for novelty of language, form, imagery, idea--novelty and quaintness, -perhaps amusing “originality”, or grotesqueness--let him reflect how -unreasonable a similar demand on the part of English critics was a -century ago relative to the beginnings of American poetry. Were not -American poets products of the same culture as their contemporaries in -England? What other language had they than the language of Shakespeare -and Wordsworth, Keats and Tennyson? The same is essentially true of the -American Negro--or the Negro American, if you choose. He is the heir of -Anglo-Saxon culture, he has been nurtured in the same spiritual soil as -his contemporary of the white race, the same traditions of language, -form, imagery, and idea are his. Everything possible has been done to -stamp out his own African traditions and native propensities. Therefore, -let no unreasonable demand be laid upon these Negro rhymers. - -Notwithstanding, something distinctive, and something uniquely -significant, may be discerned in these verse productions to reward the -perusal. But this may not be the reader’s chief reward. That may be his -discovery, that, after all, a wonderful likeness rather than unlikeness -to the poetry of other races looks forth from this poetry of the -children of Ham. A valuable result would this be, should it follow. - -Before attempting a survey of the field of contemporary verse it will -advantage us to cast a backward glance upon the poetic traditions of the -Negro, to see what is the present-day Negro poet’s heritage of song. -These traditions will be reviewed in two sections: 1. Untaught Melodies; -2. The Poetry of Art. This backward glance will comprehend all that was -sung or written by colored people from Jupiter Hammon to Paul Laurence -Dunbar. - - -I. UNTAUGHT MELODIES - -The Negro might well be expected to exhibit a gift for poetry. His gift -for oratory has long been acknowledged. The fact has been accepted -without reflection upon its significance. It should have been foreseen -that because of the close kinship between oratory and poetry the Negro -would some day, with more culture, achieve distinction in the latter -art, as he had already achieved distinction in the former art. The -endowments which make for distinction in these two great kindred arts, -it must also be remarked, have not been properly esteemed in the Negro. -In other races oratory and poetry have been accepted as the tokens of -noble qualities of character, lofty spiritual gifts. Such they are, in -all races. They spring from mankind’s supreme spiritual impulses, from -mankind’s loftiest aspirations--the aspirations for freedom, for -justice, for virtue, for honor and distinction. - -That these impulses, these aspirations, and these endowments are in the -American Negro and are now exhibiting themselves in verse--it is this I -wish to show to the skeptically minded. It will readily be admitted that -the Negro nature is endowed above most others, if not all others, in -fervor of feeling, in the completeness of self-surrender to emotion. -Hence we see that marvelous display of rhythm in the individual and in -the group. This capacity of submission to a higher harmony, a grander -power, than self, affords the explanation of mankind’s highest reaches -of thought, supreme insights, and noblest expressions. Rhythm is its -manifestation. It is the most central and compulsive law of the -universe. The rhythmic soul falls into harmony and co-operation with the -universal creative energy. It therefore becomes a creative soul. Rhythm -visibly takes hold of the Negro and sways his entire being. It makes him -one with the universal Power that Goethe describes, in famous lines, as -“at the roaring loom of time, weaving for God the garment thou seest him -by.” - -But fervor of feeling must have some originating cause. That cause is a -conception--the vivid, concrete presentation of an object or idea to the -mind. The Negro has this endowment also. Ideas enter his mind with a -vividness and power which betoken an extraordinary faculty of -imagination. The graphic originality of language commonly exhibited by -the Negro would be sufficient proof of this were other proof wanting. No -one will deny to the Negro this gift. Whoever has listened to a colored -preacher’s sermon, either of the old or the new school, will recall -perhaps more than one example of poetic phrasing, more than one -word-picture, that rendered some idea vivid beyond vanishing. It no -doubt has been made, in the ignorant or illiterate, an object of jest, -just as the other two endowments have been; but these three gifts are -the three supreme gifts of the poet, and the poet is the supreme -outcome of the race: power of feeling, power of imagination, power of -expression--and these make the poet. - - -_1. The Spirituals_ - -As a witness of the Negro’s untutored gift for song there are the -Spirituals, his “canticles of love and woe,” chanted wildly, in that -darkness which only a few rays from heaven brightened. Since they -afford, as it were, a background for the song of cultured art which now -begins to appear, I must here give a word to these crude old plantation -songs. They are one of the most notable contributions of any people, -similarly circumstanced, to the world’s treasury of song, altogether the -most appealing. Their significance for history and for art--more -especially for art--awaits interpretation. There are signs that this -interpretation is not far in the future. Dvorak, the Bohemian, aided by -the Negro composer, Harry T. Burleigh, may have heralded, in his “New -World Symphony,” the consummate achievement of the future which shall be -entirely the Negro’s. Had Samuel Coleridge-Taylor been an American -instead of an English Negro, this theme rather than the Indian theme -might have occupied his genius--the evidence whereof is that, removed as -he was from the scenes of plantation life and the tribulations of the -slaves, yet that life and those tribulations touched his heart and -found a place, though a minor one, in his compositions. - -But the sister art of poetry may anticipate music in the great feat of -embodying artistically the yearning, suffering, prayerful soul of the -African in those centuries when he could only with patience endure and -trust in God--and wail these mournfullest of melodies. Some lyrical -drama like “Prometheus Bound,” but more touching as being more human; -some epic like “Paradise Lost,” but nearer to the common heart of man, -and more lyrical; some “Divina Commedia,” that shall be the voice of -those silent centuries of slavery, as Dante’s poem was the voice of the -long-silent epoch preceding it, or some lyrical “passion play” like that -of Oberammergau, is the not improbable achievement of some descendant of -the slaves. - -In a poem of tender appeal, James Weldon Johnson has celebrated the -“black and unknown bards,” who, without art, and even without letters, -produced from their hearts, weighed down with sorrows, the immortal -Spirituals: - - O black and unknown bards of long ago, - How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? - How, in your darkness, did you come to know - The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre? - Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes? - Who first from out the still watch, lone and long, - Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise - Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song? - -So begins this noble tribute to the nameless natural poets whose hearts, -touched as a harp by the Divine Spirit, gave forth “Swing Low, Sweet -Chariot,” and “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See,” “Steal Away to Jesus,” -and “Roll, Jordan, Roll.” - -Great praise does indeed rightly belong to that black slave-folk who -gave to the world this treasure of religious song. To the world, I say, -for they belong as truly to the whole world as do the quaint and -incomparable animal stories of Uncle Remus. Their appeal is to every -human heart, but especially to the heart that has known great sorrow and -which looks to God for help. - -It is only of late their meaning has begun to dawn upon us--their -tragic, heart-searching meaning. Who in hearing these Spirituals sung -to-day by the heirs of their creators can doubt what they meant when -they were wailed in the quarters or shouted in wild frenzy in the -camp-meetings of the slaves? Even the broken, poverty-stricken English -adds infinitely to the pathos: - - I’m walking on borrowed land, - This world ain’t none of my home. - - We’ll stand the storm, it won’t be long. - - Oh, walk together children, - Don’t get weary. - - My heavenly home is bright and fair, - Nor pain nor death can enter there. - - Oh, steal away and pray, - I’m looking for my Jesus. - - Oh, freedom! oh, freedom! oh, freedom over me! - An’ before I’d be a slave, - I’ll be buried in my grave, - And go home to my Lord an’ be free. - -Not a word here but had two meanings for the slave, a worldly one and a -spiritual one, and only one meaning, the spiritual one, for the -master--who gladly saw this religious frenzy as an emotional -safety-valve. - -In certain aspects these Spirituals suggest the songs of Zion, the -Psalms. Trouble is the mother of song, particularly of religious song. -In trouble the soul cries out to God--“a very present help in time of -trouble.” The Psalms and the Spirituals alike rise _de profundis_. But -in one respect the songs of the African slaves differ from the songs of -Israel in captivity: there is no prayer for vengeance in the Spirituals, -no vindictive spirit ever even suggested. We can but wonder now at this. -For slavery at its best was degrading, cruel, and oppressive. Yet no -imprecation, such as mars so many a beautiful Psalm, ever found its way -into a plantation Spiritual. A convincing testimony this to that spirit -in the African slave which Christ, by precept and example, sought to -establish in His disciples. If the Negro in our present day is growing -bitter toward the white race, it behooves us to inquire why it is so, in -view of his indisputable patience, meekness, and good-nature. We might -find in our present régime a more intolerable cruelty than belonged even -to slavery, if we investigated honestly. There is certainly a bitter and -vindictive tone in much of the Afro-American verse now appearing in the -colored press. For both races it augurs ill. - -But I have not yet indicated the precise place of these Spirituals in -the world’s treasury of song. They have a close kinship with the Psalms -but a yet closer one with the chanted prayers of the primitive -Christians, the Christians when they were the outcasts of the Roman -Empire when to be a Christian was to be a martyr. In secret places, in -catacombs, they sent up their triumphant though sorrowful songs, they -chanted their litanies - - “--that came - Like the volcano’s tongue of flame - Up from the burning core below-- - The canticles of love and woe.” - -So indeed came the Spirituals of the African slave. These songs might in -truth, to use a figure of the old poets, be called the melodious tears -of those who wailed them. An African proverb says, “We weep in our -hearts like the tortoise.” In their hearts--so wept the slaves, silently -save for these mournful cries in melody. Without means of defense, save -a nature armored with faith, when assailed, insulted, oppressed, they -could but imitate the tortoise when he shuts himself up in his - -[Illustration: INSPIRATION - -_By Meta Warrick Fuller_] - -shell and patiently takes the blows that fall. The world knew not then, -nor fully knows now--partly because of African buoyancy, pliability, and -optimism--what tears they wept. These Spirituals are the golden vials -spoken of in Holy Writ, “full of odors, which are the prayers of -saints”--an everlasting memorial before the throne of God. Other vials -there are, different from these, and they, too, are at God’s right hand. - -A Negro sculptor, Mrs. Meta Warrick Fuller, not knowing of this proverb -about the tortoise which has only recently been brought from Africa, but -simply interpreting Negro life in America, has embodied the very idea of -the African saying in bronze. Under the title “Secret Sorrow” a man is -represented as eating his own heart. - -The interpretation in art of the Spirituals, or a poetry of art -developed along the lines and in the spirit of those songs, is something -we may expect the black singers of no distant day to produce. Already we -have many a poem that offers striking reminiscences of them. - - -_2. The Seculars_ - -But other songs the Negro has which are more noteworthy from the point -of view of art than the Spirituals: songs that are richer in artistic -effects, more elaborate in form, more varied and copious in expression. -These are the Negro’s secular songs and rhymes, his dance, play, and -love-making songs, his gnomic and nursery rhymes.[1] It is not -exaggeration to say that in rhythmic and melodic effects they surpass -any other body of folk-verse whatsoever. In wit, wisdom, and quaint -turns of humor no other folk-rhymes equal them. Prolific, too, in such -productions the race seems to have been, since so many at this late day -were to be found. - -It comes not within the scope of this anthology to include any of these -folk-rhymes of the elder day, but a few specimens seem necessary to -indicate to the young Negro who would be a poet his rich heritage of -song and to the white reader what essentially poetic traits the Negro -has by nature. It was “black and unknown bards,” slaves, too, who sang -or said these rhymes: - - Oh laugh an’ sing an’ don’t git tired. - We’s all gwine home, some Mond’y, - To de honey pond an’ fritter trees; - An’ ev’ry day’ll be Sund’y. - -Pride, too, and a sense of values had the Negro, bond or free: - - My name’s Ran, I wuks in de san’; - But I’d druther be a Nigger dan a po’ white man. - - Gwinter hitch my oxes side by side, - An’ take my gal fer a big fine ride. - -After a description of anticipated pleasures and a comic interlude in -dialogue, the ballad from which these two couplets are taken concludes -with that varied repetition of the first stanza which we find so -effective in the poems of art: - - I’d druther be a Nigger, an’ plow ole Beck, - Dan a white Hill Billy wid his long red neck. - -Song or rhyme was, as ever, heart’s ease to the Negro in every trouble. -Here are two rhymes that “pack up” and put away two common troubles: - - She writ me a letter - As long as my eye. - An’ she say in dat letter: - “My Honey!--Good-by!” - - Dem whitefolks say dat money talk. - If it talk lak dey tell, - Den ev’ry time it come to Sam, - It up an’ say: “Farewell!” - -Going to the nursery--it was the one room of the log cabin, or the great -out-of-doors--we find the old-time Negro’s head filled with a _Mother -Goose_ more enchanting than any printed and pictured one in the “great -house” of the white child: - - W’en de big owl whoops, - An’ de screech owl screeks, - An’ de win’ makes a howlin’ sound; - You liddle woolly heads - Had better kiver up, - Caze de “hants” is comin’ ’round. - - A, B, C, - Doubled down D; - I’se so lazy you cain’t see me. - - A, B, C, - Doubled down D; - Lazy Chilluns gits hick’ry tea. - - * * * * * - - Buck an’ Berry run a race, - Buck fall down an’ skin his face. - - Buck an’ Berry in a stall; - Buck, he try to eat it all. - - Buck, he e’t too much, you see. - So he died wid choleree. - -But it is in the dance songs that rhythm in its perfection makes itself -felt and that repetends are employed with effects which another Poe or -Lanier might appropriate for supreme art. A lively scene and gay -frolicsome movements are conjured up by the following dance songs: - -CHICKEN IN THE BREAD TRAY - - “Auntie, will yo’ dog bite?”-- - “No, Chile! No!” - Chicken in de bread tray - A makin’ up dough. - - “Auntie, will yo’ broom hit?”-- - “Yes, Chile!” Pop! - Chicken in de bread tray; - “Flop! Flop! Flop!” - - “Auntie, will yo’ oven bake?”-- - “Yes. Jes fry!”-- - “What’s dat chicken good fer?”-- - “Pie! Pie! Pie!” - - “Auntie, is yo’ pie good?”-- - “Good as you could ’spec’.” - Chicken in de bread tray; - “Peck! Peck! Peck!” - -[Illustration: DANCERS] - -JUBA - - Juba dis, an’ Juba dat, - Juba skin dat Yaller Cat. Juba! Juba! - - Juba jump an’ Juba sing. - Juba cut dat Pigeon’s Wing. Juba! Juba! - - Juba, kick off Juba’s shoe. - Juba, dance dat Jubal Jew. Juba! Juba! - - Juba, whirl dat foot about. - Juba, blow dat candle out. Juba! Juba! - - Juba circle, Raise de Latch. - Juba do dat Long Dog Scratch. Juba! Juba! - -Out of the pastime group I take a rhyme that is typically full of -character, delicious in its wit and proverbial lore: - -FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES - - You needn’ sen’ my gal hoss apples, - You needn’ sen’ her ’lasses candy; - She would keer fer de lak o’ you, - Ef you’d sen’ her apple brandy. - - W’y don’t you git some common sense? - Jes git a liddle! Oh fer land sakes! - Quit yo’ foolin’, she hain’t studyin’ you! - Youse jes fattenin’ frogs fer snakes! - -In the love songs one finds that mingling of pathos and humor so -characteristic of the Negro. The one example I shall give lacks nothing -of art--some unknown Dunbar, some black Bobbie Burns, must have composed -it: - -SHE HUGGED ME AND KISSED ME - - I see’d her in de Springtime, - I see’d her in de Fall, - I see’d her in de Cotton patch, - A cameing from de Ball. - - She hug me, an’ she kiss me, - She wrung my han’ an’ cried. - She said I wus de sweetes’ thing - Dat ever lived or died. - - She hug me an’ she kiss me. - Oh Heaben! De touch o’ her han’! - She said I wus de puttiest thing - In de shape o’ mortal man. - - I told her dat I love her, - Dat my love wus bed-cord strong; - Den I axed her w’en she’d have me, - An’ she jes say, “Go long!” - -In a very striking way these folk-songs of the plantation suggest the -old English folk-songs of unknown authorship and origin--the ancient -traditional ballads, long despised and neglected, but ever living on and -loved in the hearts of the people. This unstudied poetry of the people, -the unlettered common folk, had supreme virtues, the elemental and -universal virtues of simplicity, sincerity, veracity. It had the power, -in an artificial age, to bring poetry back to reality, to genuine -emotion, to effectiveness, to the common interests of mankind. Simple -and crude as it was it had a merit unknown to the polished verse of the -schools. Potential Negro poets might do well to ponder this fact of -literary history. There is nothing more precious in English literature -than this crude old poetry of the people. - -There is a book of rhymes which, every Christmas season, is the favorite -gift, the most gladly received, of all that Santa Claus brings. Nor so -at Christmas only; it is a perennial pleasure, a boon to all children, -young and old in years. This book is _Mother Goose’s Melodies_. How many -“immortal” epics of learned poets it has outlived! How many dainty -volumes of polished lyrics has this humble book of “rhymes” seen vanish -to the dusty realms of dark oblivion! In every home it has a place and -is cherished. Its contents are better known and more loved than the -contents of any other book. Untutored, nameless poets, nature-inspired, -gave this priceless boon to all generations of children, and to all -sorts and conditions--an immortal book. As a life-long teacher and -student of poetry, I venture, with no fear, the assertion that from no -book of verse in our language can the whole art of poetry be so -effectively learned as from _Mother Goose’s Melodies_. Every device of -rhyme, and melody, and rhythm, and tonal color is exemplified here in a -manner to produce the effects which all the great artists in verse aim -at. This book that we all love--and patronize--is the greatest melodic -triumph in the white man’s literature. - -Of like merit and certainly no less are the folk rhymes and songs, both -the Spirituals and the Seculars, of the Negro. Their art potentialities -are immense. Well may the aspirant to fame in poetry put these songs in -his memory and peruse them as Burns did the old popular songs of -Scotland, to make them yield suggestions of songs at the highest reach -of art. - - -II. THE POETRY OF ART - -But another heritage of song, not so crude nor yet so precious as the -Spirituals and the Folk Rhymes has the Negro of to-day. That heritage -comes from enslaved and emancipated men and women who by some means or -another learned to write and publish their compositions. Although the -intrinsic value of this heritage of song cannot be rated high, yet, -considering the circumstances of its production, the colored people of -America may well take pride in it. Its incidental value can hardly be -overestimated. In it is the most infallible record we have of the -Negro’s inner life in bondage and in the years following emancipation. -Never broken was the tradition from Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, -in the last half of the eighteenth century, to Paul Laurence Dunbar and -Joseph Seamon Cotter, in the end of the nineteenth, but constantly -enriched by an increasing number of men and women who sought in the form -of verse a record of their sufferings and yearnings, consolations and -hopes. - - -_1. Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley_ - -Jupiter Hammon was the first American Negro poet of whom any record -exists. His first extant poem, “An Evening Thought,” bears the date of -1760, preceding therefore any poem by Phillis Wheatley, his -contemporary, by nine years. Following the title of the poem this -information is given: “Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to -Mr. Lloyd, of Queen’s Village, on Long Island, the 25th of December, -1760.” With this poem of eighty-eight rhyming lines, printed on a -double-column broadside, entered the American Negro into American -literature. For that reason alone, were his stanzas inferior to what -they are, I should include some of them in this anthology. But the truth -is that, as “religious” poetry goes, or went in the eighteenth -century--and Hammon’s poetry is all religious--this Negro slave may hold -up his head in almost any company. - -Nevertheless, the reader must not expect poetry in the typical stanzas I -shall quote, but just some remarkable rhyming for an African slave, -untaught and without precedent. “An Evening Thought” runs in such -stanzas as the following: - - Dear Jesus give thy Spirit now, - Thy Grace to every Nation, - That han’t the Lord to whom we bow, - The Author of Salvation. - -From “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley, Ethiopian Poetess,” I take -the following as a representative stanza: - - While thousands muse with earthly toys, - And range about the street, - Dear Phillis, seek for heaven’s joys, - Where we do hope to meet. - -“A Poem for Children, with Thoughts on Death,” contains such stanzas as -this: - - ’Tis God alone can make you wise, - His wisdom’s from above, - He fills the soul with sweet supplies - By his redeeming love. - -Two stanzas from “A Dialogue, Entitled, The Kind Master and the Dutiful -Servant,” will show how that poem runs: - -MASTER - - Then will the happy day appear, - That virtue shall increase; - Lay up the sword and drop the spear, - And Nations seek for peace. - -SERVANT - - Then shall we see the happy end, - Tho’ still in some distress; - That distant foes shall act like friends, - And leave their wickedness. - -Jupiter Hammon’s birth and death dates are uncommemorated because -unknown. Unknown, too, is his grave. But to his memory, no less than to -that of Crispus Attucks, there should somewhere be erected a monument. - -[Illustration: PHILLIS WHEATLEY] - -Since Stedman included in his _Library of American Literature_ a picture -of Phillis Wheatley and specimens of her verse, a few white persons, -less than scholars and more than general readers, knew, when Dunbar -appeared, that there had been at least one poetic predecessor in his -race. But the long stretch between the slave-girl rhymer of Boston and -the elevator-boy singer of Dayton was desert. They knew not of George -Moses Horton of North Carolina, who found publication for _Poems by a -Slave_ in 1829, and _Poetical Works_ in 1845. Horton, who learned to -write by his own efforts, is said to have been so fond of poetry that he -would pick up any chance scraps of paper he saw, hoping to find verses. -They knew not of Ann Plato, of Hartford, Connecticut, a slave girl who -published a book of twenty poems in 1841; nor of Frances Ellen Watkins -(afterwards Harper) whose _Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects_ appeared in -1857, reaching a circulation of ten thousand copies; nor of Charles L. -Reason, whose poem entitled _Freedom_, published in 1847, voiced the cry -of millions of fellow blacks in bonds. - - -_2. Charles L. Reason_ - -[Illustration: CHARLES L. REASON] - -Thus bursts forth Reason’s poetic cry, not unlike that of the crude -Spirituals: - - O Freedom! Freedom! Oh, how oft - Thy loving children call on Thee! - In wailings loud and breathings soft, - Beseeching God, Thy face to see. - - With agonizing hearts we kneel, - While ’round us howls the oppressor’s cry,-- - And suppliant pray that we may feel - The ennobling glances of Thine eye. - -The apostrophe continues through forty-two stanzas, commemorating, with -appreciative knowledge of history, the countries, battle fields, and -heroes associated with the advance of freedom. After an arraignment of -civil rulers and a recreant priesthood, the learned and noble apostrophe -thus concludes: - - Oh, purify each holy court! - The ministry of law and light! - That man no longer may be bought - To trample down his brother’s right. - - We lift imploring hands to Thee! - We cry for those in prison bound! - Oh, in Thy strength come! Liberty! - And ’stablish right the wide world round. - - We pray to see Thee, face to face: - To feel our souls grow strong and wide: - So ever shall our injured race - By Thy firm principles abide. - - -_3. George Moses Horton_ - -By some means or other, self-guided, the North Carolina slave, George -Moses Horton, learned to read and write. His first book, _Poems by a -Slave_, appeared in 1829, and other books followed until 1865. Like -Hammon, and true to his race, Horton is religious, and, like Reason, and -again true to his race, he loves freedom. I choose but a few stanzas to -illustrate his quality as a poet: - - Alas! and am I born for this, - To wear this slavish chain? - Deprived of all created bliss, - Through hardship, toil, and pain? - - How long have I in bondage lain, - And languished to be free! - Alas! and must I still complain, - Deprived of liberty? - - * * * * * - - Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound, - Roll through my ravished ears; - Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, - And drive away my fears. - - -_4. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper_ - -A female poet of the same period as Horton wrote in the same strain -about freedom: - - Make me a grave wher’er you will, - In a lowly plain or a lofty hill; - Make it among earth’s humblest graves, - But not in a land where men are slaves. - -Like Horton, she lived to see her prayer for freedom answered. Of the -Emancipation Proclamation she burst forth in joy: - - It shall flash through coming ages, - It shall light the distant years; - And eyes now dim with sorrow - Shall be brighter through their tears. - -This slave woman was Frances Ellen Watkins, by marriage Harper. Mrs. -Harper attained to a greater popularity than any poet of her race prior -to Dunbar. As many as ten thousand copies of some of her poems were in -circulation in the middle of the last century. Her success was not -unmerited. Many singers of no greater merit have enjoyed greater -celebrity. She was thoroughly in the fashion of her times, as Phillis -Wheatley was in the yet prevalent fashion of Pope, or, perhaps more -accurately, Cowper. The models in the middle of the nineteenth century -were Mrs. Hemans, Whittier, and Longfellow. It is in their manner she -writes. A serene and beautiful Christian spirit tells a moral tale in -fluent ballad stanzas, not without poetic phrasing. In all she beholds, -in all she experiences, there is a lesson. There is no grief without its -consolation. Serene resignation breathes through all her poems--at least -through those written after her freedom was achieved. Illustrations of -these traits abound. A few stanzas from _Go Work in My Vineyard_ will -suffice. After bitter disappointments in attempting to fulfil the -command the “lesson” comes thus sweetly expressed: - -[Illustration: F. E. W. HARPER] - - My hands were weak, but I reached them out - To feebler ones than mine, - And over the shadows of my life - Stole the light of a peace divine. - - Oh, then my task was a sacred thing, - How precious it grew in my eyes! - ’Twas mine to gather the bruised grain - For the Lord of Paradise. - - And when the reapers shall lay their grain - On the floors of golden light, - I feel that mine with its broken sheaves - Shall be precious in His sight. - - Though thorns may often pierce my feet, - And the shadows still abide, - The mists will vanish before His smile, - There will be light at eventide. - -How successfully Mrs. Harper could draw a lesson from the common objects -or occurrences of the world about us may be illustrated by the following -poem: - -TRUTH - - A rock, for ages, stern and high, - Stood frowning ’gainst the earth and sky, - And never bowed his haughty crest - When angry storms around him prest. - Morn, springing from the arms of night, - Had often bathed his brow with light, - And kissed the shadows from his face - With tender love and gentle grace. - - Day, pausing at the gates of rest, - Smiled on him from the distant West, - And from her throne the dark-browed Night - Threw round his path her softest light. - And yet he stood unmoved and proud, - Nor love, nor wrath, his spirit bowed; - He bared his brow to every blast - And scorned the tempest as it passed. - - One day a tiny, humble seed-- - The keenest eye would hardly heed-- - Fell trembling at that stern rock’s base, - And found a lowly hiding-place. - A ray of light, and drop of dew, - Came with a message, kind and true; - They told her of the world so bright, - Its love, its joy, and rosy light, - And lured her from her hiding-place, - To gaze upon earth’s glorious face. - - So, peeping timid from the ground, - She clasped the ancient rock around, - And climbing up with childish grace, - She held him with a close embrace; - Her clinging was a thing of dread; - Where’er she touched a fissure spread, - And he who’d breasted many a storm - Stood frowning there, a mangled form. - - A Truth, dropped in the silent earth, - May seem a thing of little worth, - Till, spreading round some mighty wrong, - It saps its pillars proud and strong, - And o’er the fallen ruin weaves - The brightest blooms and fairest leaves. - -The story of Vashti, who dared heroically to disobey her -monarch-husband, is as well told in simple ballad measure as one may -find it. I give it entire: - -VASHTI - - She leaned her head upon her hand - And heard the King’s decree-- - “My lords are feasting in my halls; - Bid Vashti come to me. - - “I’ve shown the treasures of my house, - My costly jewels rare, - But with the glory of her eyes - No rubies can compare. - - “Adorn’d and crown’d I’d have her come, - With all her queenly grace, - And, ’mid my lords and mighty men, - Unveil her lovely face. - - “Each gem that sparkles in my crown, - Or glitters on my throne, - Grows poor and pale when she appears, - My beautiful, my own!” - - All waiting stood the chamberlains - To hear the Queen’s reply. - They saw her cheek grow deathly pale, - But light flash’d to her eye: - - “Go, tell the King,” she proudly said, - “That I am Persia’s Queen, - And by his crowds of merry men - I never will be seen. - - “I’ll take the crown from off my head - And tread it ’neath my feet, - Before their rude and careless gaze - My shrinking eyes shall meet. - - “A queen unveil’d before the crowd!-- - Upon each lip my name!-- - Why, Persia’s women all would blush - And weep for Vashti’s shame! - - “Go back!” she cried, and waved her hand, - And grief was in her eye: - “Go, tell the King,” she sadly said, - “That I would rather die.” - - They brought her message to the King; - Dark flash’d his angry eye; - ’Twas as the lightning ere the storm - Hath swept in fury by. - - Then bitterly outspoke the King, - Through purple lips of wrath-- - “What shall be done to her who dares - To cross your monarch’s path?” - - Then spake his wily counsellors-- - “O King of this fair land! - From distant Ind to Ethiop, - All bow to thy command. - - “But if, before thy servants’ eyes, - This thing they plainly see, - That Vashti doth not heed thy will - Nor yield herself to thee, - - “The women, restive ’neath our rule, - Would learn to scorn our name, - And from her deed to us would come - Reproach and burning shame. - - “Then, gracious King, sign with thy hand - This stern but just decree, - That Vashti lay aside her crown, - Thy Queen no more to be.” - - She heard again the King’s command, - And left her high estate; - Strong in her earnest womanhood, - She calmly met her fate, - - And left the palace of the King, - Proud of her spotless name-- - A woman who could bend to grief - But would not bow to shame. - -Those last stanzas are quite as noble as any that one may find in the -poets whom I named as setting the American fashion in the era of Mrs. -Harper. The poems of this gentle, sweet-spirited Negro woman deserve a -better fate than has overtaken them. - - -_5. James Madison Bell and Albery A. Whitman_ - -Although this is not a history of American Negro poetry, yet a brief -notice must be given at this point to two other writers too important to -be omitted even from a swift survey like the present one. They are J. -Madison Bell and Albery A. Whitman. - -[Illustration: JAMES MADISON BELL] - -Bell, anti-slavery orator and friend of John Brown’s, was a prolific -writer of eloquent verse. His original endowments were considerable. -Denied an education in boyhood, he learned a trade and in manhood at -night-schools gained access to the wisdom of books. He became a master -of expression both with tongue and pen. His long period of productivity -covers the history of his people from the decade before Emancipation -till the death of Dunbar. Bell’s themes are lofty and he writes with -fervid eloquence. There is something of Byronic power in the roll of his -verse. An extract from _The Progress of Liberty_ will be representative, -though an extract cannot show either the maintenance of power or the -abundance of resources: - - O Liberty, what charm so great! - One radiant smile, one look of thine - Can change the drooping bondsman’s fate, - And light his brow with hope divine. - - His manhood, wrapped in rayless gloom, - At thy approach throws off its pall, - And rising up, as from the tomb, - Stands forth defiant of the thrall. - No tyrant’s power can crush the soul - Illumed by thine inspiring ray; - The fiendishness of base control - Flies thy approach as night from day. - - Ride onward, in thy chariot ride, - Thou peerless queen; ride on, ride on-- - With Truth and Justice by thy side-- - From pole to pole, from sun to sun! - Nor linger in our bleeding South, - Nor domicile with race or clan; - But in thy glorious goings forth, - Be thy benignant object Man-- - - Of every clime, of every hue, - Of every tongue, of every race, - ’Neath heaven’s broad, ethereal blue; - Oh! let thy radiant smiles embrace, - Till neither slave nor one oppressed - Remain throughout creation’s span, - By thee unpitied and unblest - Of all the progeny of man. - - We fain would have the world aspire - To that proud height of free desire, - That flamed the heart of Switzer’s Tell - (Whose archery skill none could excell), - When once upon his Alpine brow, - He stood reclining on his bow, - And saw, careering in his might-- - In all his majesty of flight-- - A lordly eagle float and swing - Upon his broad, untrammeled wing. - - He bent his bow, he poised his dart, - With full intent to pierce the heart; - But as the proud bird nearer drew, - His stalwart arm unsteady grew, - His arrow lingered in the groove-- - The cord unwilling seemed to move, - For there he saw personified - That freedom which had been his pride; - And as the eagle onward sped, - O’er lofty hill and towering tree, - He dropped his bow, he bowed his head; - He could not shoot--’twas Liberty! - -Whitman, a younger contemporary of Bell’s, is the author of several long -tales in verse. Like Bell, he wrote only in standard English, and like -him also, shows a mastery of expression, with fluency of style, wealth -of imagery, and a command of the forms of verse given vogue by Scott and -Byron. Both likewise write fervently of the wrongs suffered by the black -man at the hands of the white. Thus far they resemble; but if we extend -the comparison we note important differences. Bell has more of the -fervor of the orator and the sense of fact of the historian. He adheres -closely to events and celebrates occasions. Whitman invents tragic tales -of love and romance, clothing them with the charm of the South and -infusing into them the pathos which results from the strife of thwarted -passions, the defeat of true love. - -A stanza or two from Whitman’s _An Idyl of the South_ will exemplify his -qualities. The hero of this pathetic tale is a white youth of -aristocratic parentage, the heroine is an octoroon. He is thus -described: - - He was of manly beauty--brave and fair; - There was the Norman iron in his blood, - There was the Saxon in his sunny hair - That waved and tossed in an abandoned flood; - But Norman strength rose in his shoulders square, - And so, as manfully erect he stood, - Norse gods might read the likeness of their race - In his proud bearing and patrician face. - -The heroine is thus portrayed: - - A lithe and shapely beauty; like a deer, - She looked in wistfulness, and from you went; - With silken shyness shrank as if in fear, - And kept the distance of the innocent. - But, when alone, she bolder would appear; - Then all her being into song was sent - To bound in cascades--ripple, whirl, and gleam, - A headlong torrent in a crystal stream. - -Only tragedy, under the conditions, could result from their mutual -fervent love. The poet does not moralize but in a figure intimates the -sadness induced by the tale: - - The hedges may obscure the sweetest bloom-- - The orphan of the waste--the lowly flower; - While in the garden, faint for want of room, - The splendid failure pines within her bower. - There is a wide republic of perfume, - In which the nameless waifs of sun and shower, - That scatter wildly through the fields and woods, - Make the divineness of the solitudes. - -After such a manner wrote those whom we may call bards of an elder day. - - -_6. Paul Laurence Dunbar_ - - He came, a dark 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. - --_James David Corrothers._ - -Less than a generation ago William Dean Howells hailed Paul Laurence -Dunbar as “the first instance of an American Negro who had evinced -innate distinction in literature,” “the only man of pure African blood -and of American civilization to feel Negro life æsthetically and express -it lyrically.” It is not my purpose to give Dunbar space and -consideration in this book commensurate with his importance. Its scope -does not, strictly speaking, include him and his predecessors. They are -introduced here, but to provide an historical background. The object of -this book is to exhibit the achievement of the Negro in verse since -Dunbar. Even though it were true, which I think it is not, that no -American Negro previous to Dunbar had evinced innate distinction in -literature, this anthology, I believe, will reveal that many American -Negroes in this new day are evincing, if not innate distinction, yet -cultured talent, in literature. - -[Illustration: PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR] - -The sonnet to Dunbar which stands at the head of this section was -composed by a Negro who was by three years Dunbar’s senior. His -opportunities in early life were far inferior to Dunbar’s. At nineteen -years of age, with almost inconsiderable schooling, he was a boot-black -in a Chicago barber shop. I give his sonnet here--other poems of his I -give in another chapter--in evidence of that distinction in literature, -innate or otherwise, which is rather widespread among American Negroes -of the present time. Dunbar himself might have been proud to put his -name to this sonnet. - -When this marvel, a Negro poet, so vouched for, appeared in the West, -like a new star in the heavens, a few white people, a very few, knew, -vaguely, that back in Colonial times there was a slave woman in Boston -who had written verses, who was therefore a prodigy. The space between -Phillis Wheatley and this new singer was desert. But Nature, as people -think, produces freaks, or sports; therefore a Negro poet was not -absolutely beyond belief, since poets are rather freakish, abnormal -creatures anyway. Incredulity therefore yielded to an attitude scarcely -worthier, namely, that dishonoring, irreverent interpretation of a -supreme human phenomenon which consists in denominating it a freak of -nature. But Dunbar is a fact, as Burns, as Whittier, as Riley, are -facts--a fact of great moment to a people and for a people. For one -thing, he revealed to the Negro youth of America the latent literary -powers and the unexploited literary materials of their race. He was the -fecundating genius of their talents. Upon all his people he was a -tremendously quickening power, not less so than his great contemporary -at Tuskegee. Doubtless it will be recognized, in a broad view, that the -Negro people of America needed, equally, both men, the counterparts of -each other. - -It needs to be remarked for white people, that there were two Dunbars, -and that they know but one. There is the Dunbar of “the jingle in a -broken tongue,” whom Howells with gracious but imperfect sympathy and -understanding brought to the knowledge of the world, and whom the public -readers, white and black alike, have found it delightful to present, to -the entire eclipse of the other Dunbar. That other Dunbar was the poet -of the flaming “Ode to Ethiopia,” the pathetic lyric, “We Wear the -Mask,” the apparently offhand jingle but real masterpiece entitled -“Life,” the incomparable ode “Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary -eyes,” and a score of other pieces in which, using their speech, he -matches himself with the poets who shine as stars in the firmament of -our admiration. This Dunbar Howells failed to appreciate, and ignorance -of him has been fostered, as I have intimated, by professional readers -and writers. The first Dunbar, the generally accepted one, was, as -Howells pointed out, the artistic interpreter of the old-fashioned, -vanishing generation of black folk--the generation that was maimed and -scarred by slavery, that presented so many ludicrous and pathetic, -abject and lovable aspects in strange mixture. The second Dunbar was the -prophet robed in a mantle of austerity, shod with fire, bowed with -sorrow, as every true prophet has been, in whatever time, among -whatever people. He was the prophet, I say, of a new generation, a -coming generation, as he was the poet of a vanishing generation. The -generation of which he was the prophet-herald has arrived. Its most -authentic representatives are the poets that I put forward in this -volume as worthy of attention. - -Dunbar’s real significance to his race has been admirably expressed not -only by Corrothers but in the following lines by his biographer, Lida -Keck Wiggins: - - Life’s lowly were laureled with verses - And sceptered were honor and worth, - While cabins became, through the poet, - Fair homes of the lords of the earth. - -So it was. But “honor and worth” yet remain, to be “sceptered.” Such -poems as these few here given from the choragus of the present -generation of Negro singers will suggest the kind of honor and the -degree of worth to which our tribute is due.[2] - -ERE SLEEP COMES DOWN TO SOOTHE THE WEARY EYES - - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, - Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought - The magic gold which from the seeker flies; - Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought, - And make the waking world a world of lies,-- - Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn, - That say life’s full of aches and tears and sighs,-- - Oh, how with more than dreams the soul is torn, - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. - - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, - How all the griefs and heartaches we have known - Come up like pois’nous vapors that arise - From some base witch’s caldron, when the crone, - To work some potent spell, her magic plies. - The past which held its share of bitter pain, - Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise, - Comes up, is lived and suffered o’er again, - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. - - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, - What phantoms fill the dimly lighted room; - What ghostly shades in awe-creating guise - Are bodied forth within the teeming gloom. - What echoes faint of sad and soul-sick cries, - And pangs of vague inexplicable pain - That pay the spirit’s ceaseless enterprise, - Come thronging through the chambers of the brain, - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. - - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, - Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? - Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies - Tends her far course to lands of mystery? - To lands unspeakable--beyond surmise, - Where shapes unknowable to being spring, - Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies - Much wearied with the spirit’s journeying, - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. - - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, - How questioneth the soul that other soul,-- - The inner sense which neither cheats nor lies, - But self exposes unto self, a scroll - Full writ with all life’s acts unwise or wise, - In characters indelible and known; - So, trembling with the shock of sad surprise, - The soul doth view its awful self alone, - Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. - - Ere sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes, - The last dear sleep whose soft embrace is balm, - And whom sad sorrow teaches us to prize - For kissing all our passions into calm, - Ah, then, no more we heed the sad world’s cries, - Or seek to probe th’ eternal mystery, - Or fret our souls at long-withheld replies, - At glooms through which our visions cannot see, - Ere sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes. - -LIFE - - A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, - A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, - A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, - And never a laugh but the moans come double; - And that is life! - - A crust and a corner that love makes precious, - With the smile to warm and the tears to refresh us; - And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, - And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter: - And that is life! - -_ODE TO ETHIOPIA_ - - O Mother Race! to thee I bring - This pledge of faith unwavering, - This tribute to thy glory. - I know the pangs which thou didst feel, - When Slavery crushed thee with its heel, - With thy dear blood all gory. - - Sad days were those--ah, sad indeed! - But through the land the fruitful seed - Of better times was growing. - The plant of freedom upward sprung, - And spread its leaves so fresh and young-- - Its blossoms now are blowing. - - On every hand in this fair land, - Proud Ethiope’s swarthy children stand - Beside their fairer neighbor; - The forests flee before their stroke, - Their hammers ring, their forges smoke,-- - They stir in honest labor. - - They tread the fields where honor calls; - Their voices sound through senate halls - In majesty and power. - To right they cling; the hymns they sing - Up to the skies in beauty ring, - And bolder grow each hour. - - Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul - Thy name is writ on Glory’s scroll - In characters of fire. - High ’mid the clouds of Fame’s bright sky - Thy banner’s blazoned folds now fly, - And truth shall lift them higher. - -[Illustration: ETHIOPIA--AWAKENING - -_By Meta Warrick Fuller_] - - Thou hast the right to noble pride, - Whose spotless robes were purified - By blood’s severe baptism, - Upon thy brow the cross was laid, - And labor’s painful sweat-beads made - A consecrating chrism. - - No other race, or white or black, - When bound as thou wert, to the rack, - So seldom stooped to grieving; - No other race, when free again, - Forgot the past and proved them men - So noble in forgiving. - - Go on and up! Our souls and eyes - Shall follow thy continuous rise; - Our ears shall list thy story - From bards who from thy root shall spring, - And proudly tune their lyres to sing - Of Ethiopia’s glory. - -WITH THE LARK - - Night is for sorrow and dawn is for joy, - Chasing the troubles that fret and annoy; - Darkness for sighing and daylight for song,-- - Cheery and chaste the strain, heartfelt and strong, - All the night through, though I moan in the dark, - I wake in the morning to sing with the lark. - - Deep in the midnight the rain whips the leaves, - Softly and sadly the wood-spirit grieves. - But when the first hue of dawn tints the sky, - I shall shake out my wings like the birds and be dry; - And though, like the rain-drops, I grieved through the dark, - I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark. - - On the high hills of heaven, some morning to be, - Where the rain shall not grieve thro’ the leaves of the tree, - There my heart will be glad for the pain I have known, - For my hand will be clasped in the hand of mine own; - And though life has been hard and death’s pathway been dark, - I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark. - -WE WEAR THE MASK - - We wear the mask that grins and lies, - It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-- - This debt we pay to human guile; - With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, - And mouth with myriad subtleties. - - Why should the world be over-wise, - In counting all our tears and sighs? - Nay, let them only see us, while - We wear the mask. - - We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries - To thee from tortured souls arise. - We sing, but oh, the clay is vile - Beneath our feet, and long the mile; - But let the world dream otherwise, - We wear the mask! - - -_7. J. Mord Allen_ - -In the year of Dunbar’s death (1906), J. Mord Allen published his -_Rhymes, Tales, and Rhymed Tales_. The contents are mainly in dialect, -dialect that possesses, as it seems to me, every merit of that medium. -There is great felicity of characterization, surprising turns of wit, -quaint philosophy. In a later chapter I will give a specimen of Mr. -Allen’s dialect verse, here two standard English poems. In both mediums -his credentials are authentic, no whit less so than even Dunbar’s. Only -the question arises why his muse became silent after this one -utterance--for he was at the time but thirty-one years old. Perhaps -poetry did not go with boiler-making, his occupation. Because of the -date of his one book I place him here with Dunbar, and there are yet -other reasons. - -Mr. Allen affords but two standard English poems, the first and the last -of his book. Such a fact marks him as of the elder day, though that day -be less than a score of years agone. The concluding poem of his book has -a sweet sadness that must appeal to every heart whose childhood is -getting to be far away: - -COUNTING OUT - - “Eeny meeny miny mo.” - Ah, how the sad-sweet Long Ago - Enyouths us, as by magic spell, - With that old rhyme. You know it well; - For time was, once, when e’en your eyes - Saw Heaven plainly, in the skies. - Past twilight, when a brave moon glowed - Just o’er the treetops, and the road - Was full of romping children--say, - What was the game we used to play? - Yes! Hide-and-seek. And at the base, - Who first must go and hide his face? - Remember--standing in a row-- - “Eeny meeny miny mo”? - - “Eeny meeny miny mo.” - How fare we children here below? - Our moon is far from treetops now, - And Heaven isn’t up, somehow. - No more for sport play we “I spy”; - Our “laying low” and “peeping high”. - Are now with consequences fraught; - There’s black disgrace in being caught. - But what’s to pay the pains we take? - Let’s play the game for its own sake, - And, ere ’tis time to homeward flit, - Let’s get some pleasure out of it. - For death will soon count down the row, - “Eeny meeny miny mo.” - -Though of the elder day yet Allen is, like Dunbar, a herald of the -generation that is now articulate. In this rôle of herald to a more -self-assertive generation, a more aspiring and race-conscious one, he -speaks with immense significance to us in this first poem of his book, -which, as being prophetic of much we now see in the colored folk of -America I permit to close this summary review of earlier Negro poetry: - -THE PSALM OF THE UPLIFT - - Still comes the Perfect Thing to man - As came the olden gods, in dreams; - And then the man--made artist--knows - How real is the thing which seems. - Then, tongue or brush or magic pen - May win the world to loud acclaim, - But he who wrought knows in his soul - That, like as tinsel is to gold, - His work is, to his aim. - - It’s there ahead to him--and you - And me. I swear it isn’t far; - Else, black Despair would cut us down - In the land of hateful Things Which Are. - But, just beyond our finger-tips, - Things As They Should Be shame the weak, - And hold the aching muscles tense - Through th’ next moment of suspense - Which triumph is to break. - - And shall we strive? The years to come, - Till sunset of eternity, - Are given to the fairest god, - The God of Things As They Should Be. - The ending? Nay, ’tis ours to do - And dare and bear and not to flinch; - To enter where is no retreat; - To win one stride from sheer defeat; - To die--but gain an inch. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE OF THE NEGRO - - -_I. A Glance at the Field_ - -Many are the forms of expression that the life of a developing people or -group finds for itself--business and wealth, education and culture, -political and social unrest and agitation, literature and art. It can -scarcely happen that any people or group has a vital significance for -other peoples or groups, or any real potency, until it begins to express -itself in poetry. When, however, a race or a portion of our common race -begins to embody its aspirations, its grievances, its animating spirit -in song the world may well take notice. That race or portion of our -common race has within it an unreckoned potency of good and evil--evil -if the good be thwarted. - -It is not, then, to editorials and speeches and sermons, nor to -petitions, protests, and resolutions, but to poems that the wise will -turn in order to learn the temper and permanent bent of mind of a -people. Witness the recent history of Ireland. Her literary renascence -preceded her effective political agitation. The political agitation -which resulted in her independence was the work of poets. The real life -of a people finds its only adequate record in song. All of a people’s -history that is permanently or profoundly significant is distilled into -poetry. - -It is to the unknown poetry of a despised and rejected people that I -call attention in these pages. One of this people’s poets sings: - - We have fashioned laughter - Out of tears and pain, - But the moment after-- - Pain and tears again. - _Charles Bertram Johnson._ - -And when he so sings we know there is one race above all others which -these words describe. Another sings: - - I will suppose that fate is just, - I will suppose that grief is wise, - And I will tread what path I must - To enter Paradise. - _Joseph S. Cotter, Sr._ - -And when he so sings we know out of what tribulations his resignation -has been born. The resolution of despair cries out in the lines of -another: - - My life were lost if I should keep - A hope-forlorn and gloomy face, - And brood upon my ills, and weep, - And mourn the travail of my race. - _Leslie Pinckney Hill._ - -Another singer, coming out of the Black Belt of the lower South, records -the daily and life-long history of his people in these lines: - -IT’S ALL THROUGH LIFE - - A day of joy, a week of pain, - A sunny day, a week of rain; - A day of peace, a year of strife; - But cling to Him, it’s all through life. - - An hour of joy, a day of fears, - An hour of smiles, a day of tears; - An hour of gain, a day of strife, - Press on, press on, it’s all through life. - _Waverley Turner Carmichael._ - -In the poetry which the Negro is producing to-day there is a challenge -to the world. His race has been deeply stirred by recent events; its -reaction has been mighty. The challenge, spoken by one, but for the -race, the inarticulate millions as well as the cultured few, comes thus: - -TO AMERICA - - How would you have us--as we are, - Or sinking ’neath the load we bear? - Our eyes fixed forward on a star? - Or gazing empty at despair? - Rising or falling? Men or things? - With dragging pace, or footsteps fleet? - Strong, willing sinews in your wings? - Or tightening chains about your feet? - _James Weldon Johnson._ - -With slight regard for smooth words another declares his grievances, -that all may understand: - - Yes, I am lynched. Is it that I - Must without judge or jury die? - Though innocent, am I accursed - To quench the mob’s blood-thirsty thirst? - - Yes, I am mocked. Pray tell me why! - Did not my brothers freely die - For you, and your Democracy-- - That each and all alike be free? - _Raymond Garfield Dandridge._ - -So runs the dominant note of this poetry. But it would be unjust to the -race producing it to convey the idea that this is the only note. The -harp of Ethiopia has many strings and the brothers of Memnon are many. -Sometimes the note is one of simple beauty, like that of a wild rose -blossoming by the wayside. No reader could tell what race produced such -a lyric as the one following, but any reader responsive to the beauty of -art and to the truth of passion would assert its excellence: - - I will hide my soul and its mighty love - In the bosom of this rose, - And its dispensing breath will take - My love wherever it goes. - And perhaps she’ll pluck this very rose, - And, quick as blushes start, - Will breathe my hidden secret in - Her unsuspecting heart. - _George Marion McClellan._ - -In a Negro magazine one may chance upon a sonnet that the best poet of -our times might have signed and feared no loss to his reputation, nor -would there be any mark of race in its lines. To candid judgment I -submit the following, from Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson: - -VIOLETS - - I had not thought of violets of late, - The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet - In wistful April days, when lovers mate - And wander through the fields in raptures sweet. - The thoughts of violets meant florists’ shops, - And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine; - And garish lights, and mincing little fops, - And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine. - So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed, - I had forgot wide fields and clear brown streams; - The perfect loveliness that God has made-- - Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams - And now unwittingly, you’ve made me dream - Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam. - -It needs not that a poet write an epic to prove himself chosen of the -muse. The winds of time may blow into oblivion all but five lines of an -_opus magnum_, in which five lines alone was the laborious author a -poet. Wise is the poet who writes but the five lines, as here: - -SUNSET - - Since Poets have told of sunset, - What is left for me to tell? - I can only say that I saw the day - Press crimson lips to the horizon gray, - And kiss the earth farewell. - _Mary Effie Lee._ - -The theme may be as old as man and as common as humanity yet it can be -made to be felt as poetic by one who has the magic gift, as here: - -LONELINESS - - I cannot make my thoughts stay home; - I cannot close their door; - And, oh, that I might shut them in, - And they go out no more! - - For they go out, with wistful eyes, - And search the whole world through; - Just hoping, in their wandering, - To catch a glimpse of you! - _Winifred Virginia Jordan._ - -One’s find may be in _The Poet’s Ingle_ of a newspaper, where an unknown -name is attached to verses that have the charm which Longfellow found -in the simple and heartfelt lays of the humbler poet. From such a poem, -entitled _To My Grandmother_, by Mae Smith Johnson, I take two stanzas, -the first two as beautiful as the theme evoked: - - You ’mind me of the winter’s eve - When low the sinking sun - Casts soft bright rays upon the snow - And day, now almost done, - In silence deep prepares to leave, - And calmly waits the signal “Go.” - - Your eyes are faded vestal lights - That once the hearth illumed, - Where vestal virgins vigil kept, - And budding virtue bloomed: - Like stars that beam on summer nights, - Your eyes, by joy and sorrow swept. - -Less beautiful, less original, but in another way not less appealing, -are these stanzas, also signed by an unknown name and taken from the -Christmas number of a newspaper. They are the last stanzas but one of a -poem entitled _The Child Is Found_, by Charles H. Este: - - O hearts that mourn and sorrow so, - That doubt the power of God, - An angel now is bending low-- - To comfort as you plod. - - He speaks with tones of whispering love, - With feelings true and strong, - And sings of sweetest joys above, - For souls without a song. - -Pride of race, no less than grief for wrongs endured, is one of the -notes of this living verse. Eulogies of the men and women who have lived -heroically for their people, giving vision, quickening aspiration, -opening roads of advance, find a place in every volume of verse and in -the pages of newspapers. Few white persons perhaps have paused to -reflect how noteworthy this traditionary store of heroic names really is -and how potent it is with the people inheriting it. Both practical and -poetic uses--if these two things are different--it has. One cannot -foretell to what reflections upon life the eulogist will be led ere he -concludes. From an ode to Booker T. Washington, by Roscoe Riley Dungee, -I take a stanza, by way of illustration: - - Yet, virtue walks a path obscure, - And honor struggles to endure, - While arrogance and deeds impure - Adorn the Hall of Fame. - Still, power triumphs over right, - And wrong is victor in the fight; - Greed, graft, and knavery excite - Vociferous acclaim. - -It has become evident to those who have seriously studied the -present-day life of the Negroes that there has been in these recent -years a renascence of the Negro soul. Poetry, as these pages will show, -is one of its modes of expression. Other expressions there are, very -significant ones, too, expressions which are material, tangible, -expressible in figures. Not of this kind is poetry. Yet of all forms -whereby the soul of a people expresses itself the most potent, the most -effective, is poetry. The re-born soul of the Negro is following the -tradition of all races in all times by pouring itself into that form of -words which embodies the most of passionate thought and feeling. - -Out of the very heart of a race of twelve million people amongst us -comes this cry which a Negro poet of Virginia utters as - -A PRAYER OF THE RACE THAT GOD MADE BLACK - - We would be peaceful, Father--but, when we must, - Help us to thunder hard the blow that’s just! - - We would be prayerful: Lord, when we have prayed, - Let us arise courageous--unafraid! - - We would be manly--proving well our worth, - Then would not cringe to any god on earth! - - We would be loving and forgiving, thus - To love our neighbor as Thou lovest us! - - We would be faithful, loyal to the Right-- - Ne’er doubting that the Day will follow Night! - - We would be all that Thou hast meant for man, - Up through the ages, since the world began! - - God! save us in Thy Heaven, where all is well! - We come slow-struggling up the Hills of Hell! - _Lucian B. Watkins._ - -Too confidently, as we may learn, have we of the other race relied upon -the Negro’s innate optimism to keep him a safe citizen and a -long-suffering servant. That optimism, that gaiety and buoyancy of -spirit, if not indestructible in the African soul, is yet reducible to -the vanishing point. There are signs of something quite different in the -attitude of Negroes toward their white neighbors to-day. In their poetry -this reputed optimism, where it exists, is found in union with a note of -melancholy or of bitter complaint. A characteristic utterance of this -mood I find in a poem entitled “The Optimist,” from which I will give -one-third of its stanzas: - - Never mind, children, be patient awhile, - And carry your load with a nod and a smile, - For out of the hell and the hard of it all, - Time is sure to bring sweetest honey--not gall. - - Out of the hell and the hard of it all, - A bright star shall rise that never shall fall: - A God-fearing race--proud, noble, and true, - Giving good for the evil which they always knew. - - * * * * * - - So dry your wet pillow and lift your bowed head - And show to the world that hope is not dead! - Be patient! Wait! See what yet may befall, - Out of the hell and the hard of it all. - _Ethyl Lewis._ - -But in dark days the Negro has ever had refuges and sources of strength -for the want of which other races have been crushed. One of these -refuges for them is the benignant breast of nature--the deep peace of -the woods and the hills, the quiet soothing of pleasant-running water, -the benediction of bright skies. A rarely-gifted woman, Mrs. Georgia -Douglas Johnson, singing her own consolation, with a pathos that pierces -the heart, has sung for thousands of the women of her race else dumb -alike in grief and in joy, and in mingled grief and joy: - -PEACE - - I rest me deep within the wood, - Drawn by its silent call; - Far from the throbbing crowd of men - On nature’s breast I fall. - - My couch is sweet with blossoms fair, - A bed of fragrant dreams, - And soft upon my ear there falls - The lullaby of streams. - - The tumult of my heart is stilled, - Within this sheltered spot, - Deep in the bosom of the wood, - Forgetting, and--forgot! - -Death and the mysteries of life, the pain and the grief that flesh and -soul are heirs to, the eternal problems that address themselves to all -generations and races, produce in the soul of the Negro the same -reactions as of old they produced in the soul of David or of Homer, or -as, in our own day, in the soul of a Wordsworth or a Shelley. Of this we -have a glimpse in the following lyric, from Walter Everette Hawkins: - -IN SPITE OF DEATH - - Curses come in every sound, - And wars spread gloom and woe around. - The cannon belch forth death and doom, - But still the lilies wave and bloom. - Man fills the earth with grief and wrong, - But cannot hush the bluebird’s song. - My stars are dancing on the sea, - The waves fling kisses up at me. - Each night my gladsome moon doth rise; - A rainbow spans my evening skies; - The robin’s song is full and fine; - And roses lift their lips to mine. - - The jonquils ope their petals sweet, - The poppies dance around my feet; - In spite of winter and of death, - The Spring is in the zephyr’s breath. - -This poetry but re-affirms the essential identity of human nature under -black and white skins. But it will remind most of the white race of how -ignorant they have been of that black race next door that is acquiring -wealth and culture and is expressing in art and literature the spirit of -an aspiring people--how ignorant of their real life, their very -thoughts, their completely human joys and griefs. One of their poets was -cognizant of this unhappy ignorance--the source of so much harshness of -treatment--when he wrote: - - My people laugh and sing - And dance to death-- - None imagining - The heartbreak under breath. - _Charles Bertram Johnson._ - -Nothing weighs more heavily upon the soul of this race to-day than this -everywhere self-betraying crass ignorance, made the more grievous to -endure by the vain boast accompanying it, that “I know the Negro better -than he knows himself.” This poetry in every line of it is a convincing -contradiction of this insulting arrogancy. Essential identity, that is -the message of these poets. - -This kinship of souls and essential oneness of human nature, which -Shylock, speaking for a similarly oppressed and outrageously treated -people, pressed home upon the Christian merchants of Venice, finds -typical expression in the following lines: - - We travel a common road, Brother,-- - We walk and we talk much the same; - We breathe the same sweet air of heaven-- - Strive alike for fortune and fame; - We laugh when our hearts fill with gladness, - We weep when we’re smothered in woe; - We strive, we endure, we seek wisdom; - We sin--and we reap what we sow. - Yes, all who would know it can see that - When everything’s put to the test, - In spite of our color and features, - The Negro’s the same as the rest. - _Leon R. Harris._ - -It is to be expected that, notwithstanding the Anglo-Saxon culture of -the producers of this poetry, the white reader will yet demand therein -what he regards as the African traits. Perhaps it will be crude, -artless, repetitious songs like the Spirituals. The quality of the -Spirituals is indeed not wanting in some of the most noteworthy -contemporary Negro verse. From Fenton Johnson’s three volumes of verse I -could select many pieces that exhibit this quality united with -disciplined art. For example, here is one: - -I PLAYED ON DAVID’S HARP - -(A Negro Spiritual) - - Last night I played on David’s harp, - I played on little David’s harp - The gospel tunes of Israel; - And all the angels came to hear - Me play those gospel tunes, - As the Jordan rolled away. - - The angels shouted all the night - Their “Glory, Hallelujah” shout; - Old Gabriel threw his trumpet down - To hear the songs of Israel, - On mighty David’s harp, - As the Jordan rolled away. - - When death has closed my weary eyes - I’ll play again on David’s harp - The last great song in life’s brief book; - And all you children born of God - Can stop awhile and hear me play, - As the Jordan rolls away. - -No less certain it is that many a reader will demand something more -crude, more obscure, more mystical. Something, perhaps, at once -ridiculous and wise--with big and strangely compounded words, -ludicrously applied, yet striving at the expression of some peculiarly -African idea. Of such verse I can produce no example. The nearest I can -come to meeting such impossible demand is by submitting the following -from William Edgar Bailey: - -THE SLUMP - - Mr. Self at the bat! - Well, we’re all at the bat-- - For one thing or other, - For this or for that. - The ball may be hurled, in the form of this plea: - “Will you please help the poor? - God, have mercy on me!” - Mr. Self stops to think; - But the ball cuts the plate-- - He’s aware that he slumped, - Grasps the bat,--but too late. - What you say, Mr. Ump? - Can it be? Yes, ’tis done! - “Well, I’ve said what I’ve said!” - Mr. Self, - Strike One! - - Mr. Self’s face is grim. - ’Tis the critical test-- - For his heart, conscience-sick, - Heaves stern at his breast. - The Truth must be hurled, ’tis the law of the game; - If in life or in death, - If in falsehood or shame. - Mr. Self, strike the ball-- - There’s a Tramp at your Gate! - Mr. Self still amazed-- - And the ball cuts the plate. - Mr. Self murmured not; - The decision he knew, - “Well, you’ve done that before.” - Sighed the Ump. - Strike Two! - - There’s the Beggar and Gate-- - But his silver and gold, - Is amix with his blood; - A part of his soul. - The Nazarene stooped--as all Umpires will do, - With His eye on a line, - That his verdict be true-- - Just a shift of the Truth, - Stern, the Nazarene tried, - But he tho’t of the Cross, - And the blood from His side. - “Your decision is false; - Oh, have mercy on me.” - But a voice from the sky, - Whispered low. - Strike three. - -Of humorous verse there is very little produced by the Negro writers of -these times. They take their vocation seriously. When their singing -robes are on it is to the plaintive notes of the flute or the dolorous -blasts of the trumpet they tune their songs. - -These voices, and others like them, have but lately been lifted in song, -they are still youthful voices, and they are but preluding the more -perfect songs they are yet to sing. One voice that is now still, -silenced lately in death, at the age of twenty-three years, has sung for -them all what all feel: - -THE MULATTO TO HIS CRITICS - - Ashamed of my race? - And of what race am I? - I am many in one. - Through my veins there flows the blood - Of Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt, and Scot, - In warring clash and tumultuous riot. - I welcome all, - But love the blood of the kindly race - That swarths my skin, crinkles my hair, - And puts sweet music into my soul. - _Joseph S. Cotter, Jr._ - -“Sweet music in the soul”--that is heaven’s kind gift to this people, -music of sorrow and of faith; music, low and plaintive, of hope almost -failing; music, clear and strong, born of vision triumphant; music, -alas, sometimes marred by the strident notes of hatred and revenge. -Verily, poets learn in suffering what they teach in song. - -In concluding this preliminary survey it should be reiterated that, if -one meets here but with the rhythms and forms, as he may think, which -are familiar to him in the poetry of the white race, he should reflect -that only in that poetry has the Negro had an opportunity to be -educated. He has been educated away from his own heritage and his own -endowments. The Negro’s native wisdom should lead him back to his -natural founts of song. Our educational system should allow of and -provide for this. His own literature in his schools is a reasonable -policy for the Negro. - -As regards the essential significance of this poetry, one of its makers, -Miss Eva A. Jessye, has said in a beautiful way almost what I wish to -say. Her poem shall therefore conclude this presentation: - -THE SINGER - - Because his speech was blunt and manner plain - Untaught in subtle phrases of the wise, - Because the years of slavery and pain - Ne’er dimmed the light of faith within his eyes; - Because of ebon skin and humble pride, - The world with hatred thrust the youth aside. - - But fragrance wafts from every trodden flower, - And through our grief we rise to nobler things, - Within the heart in sorrow’s darkest hour - A well of sweetness there unbidden springs; - Despised of men, discarded and alone-- - The world of nature claimed him as her own. - - She taught him truths that liberate the soul - From bonds more galling than the slaver’s chain-- - That manly natures, lily-wise, unfold - Amid the mire of hatred void of stain; - Thus in his manhood, clean, superbly strong, - To him was born the priceless gift of song. - - The glory of the sun, the hush of morn, - Whisperings of tree-top faintly stirred, - The desert silence, wilderness forlorn, - Far ocean depths, the tender lilt of bird; - Of hope, despair, he sang, his melody - The endless theme of life’s brief symphony. - - And nations marveled at the minstrel lad, - Who swayed emotions as his fancy led; - With him they wept, were melancholy, sad; - “’Tis but a cunning jest of Fate,” they said; - They did not dream in selfish sphere apart - That song is but the essence of the heart. - - -_II. Representatives of the Present Era_ - - -I. THE COTTERS, FATHER AND SON - - -_The Father_ - -[Illustration: JOSEPH S. COTTER, SR.] - -On the Kentucky plantation where Stephen Collins Foster one June -morning, when the mocking birds were singing and “the darkies were gay,” -composed and his sister sang, “My Old Kentucky Home,” there was among -those first delighted listeners who paused in their tasks to hear the -immortal song at its birth a slave girl in whose soul were strange -melodies of her own. Born of free people of color, she was bonded to the -owner of this plantation, yet her soul was such as must be free. -Faithful in her work, respectful and obedient, she was yet a dangerous -character among slaves, being too spirited. Hence her master ordered her -to leave, fearing she would demoralize discipline in the quarters. She -demanded to be taken away as she had been brought--in a wagon; and it -was so done. It seems that one-half of her blood was African and the -other half was divided between Indian and English, though it is -impossible to be sure of the exact proportion. An account of her in -those days by one who knew her reveals her as one of nature’s poets--a -Phillis Wheatley of the wash-tubs. “She was very fervent in her -religious devotions”--so runs this account--“and a very hard worker. She -would sometimes wash nearly all night and then have periods of prayer -and exaltation. Then again during the day she would draw from her bosom -a favorite book and pause to read over the wash-tub. She had a strong -dramatic instinct and would frequently make up little plays of her own -and represent each character vividly.” Of such mothers are seers and -poets born. And so in this instance it proved to be. - -At the age of twenty, while yet a slave, she was married, under the -common law--though marriage it was not called--to a Scotch-Irishman, a -prominent citizen of Louisville, her employer at the time, who was -distinguished by a notably handsome physique and a great fondness for -books. Of this union was born, at Bardstown, a son, Joseph, so named for -the dreamer of biblical story. - -The vision-seeing slave mother, her mind running on the bondage of her -people, named her son Joseph in the hope of his becoming great in the -service of his people, like the Hebrew Joseph. She lived to see her hope -fulfilled. The boy’s earliest education was in song and story invented -and sung or told by his mother. He got a few terms of school, reaching -the third grade. At ten years of age he went to work in a brickyard of -Louisville to help support his mother. Even there the faculty that -afterwards distinguished him appears in action, to his relief in time of -trouble. Bigger boys, white and black, working in the same yard, hazed -and harried him. Fighting to victory was out of the question, against -such odds. Brains won where brawn was wanting. He observed that the men -at their noon rest-hour, the time of his distress, told stories and -laughed. He couldn’t join them, but he tried story-telling in the boy -group. It worked. The men, hearing the laughter, came over and joined -them. The persecuted boy became the entertainer of both groups. He had -won mastery by wit, the proudest mastery in the world. - -Then, until he was twenty-two years of age, he was a teamster on the -levee. At this time the desire for an education mastered him and he -entered a night school--the primary grade. Hard toil and the struggle to -get on had not killed his soul but had wiped out his acquisitions of -book-knowledge. In two terms he was qualified to teach. He is now the -principal of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor High School in Louisville, the -author of several books, a maker of songs and teller of stories, and a -man upright in conduct and wise in counsel. - -It was at Bardstown, February 2, 1861, that Joseph Seamon Cotter was -born. Let Bardstown be put on the literary map of America, not because -Stephen Collins Foster wrote “My Old Kentucky Home” there, but because -one was born there the latchet of whose poetic shoes he was not worthy -to unloose. “A poet, a bard, to be born in Bardstown--how odd, and how -appropriate!” one exclaims. And _bard_ seems exactly the right -appellation for this song-maker and story-man. But it is not altogether -so. In character bardlike, but not in appearance. Bards have long, -unkempt, white hair, which mingles with beards that rest on their -bosoms. Cotter’s square-cut chin is clean-shaven, and his large -brain-dome shows like a harvest moon. But he makes poems and invents and -discovers stories, and, bard-like, recites or relates them to whatever -audience may call for them--in schools, in churches, at firesides. Minus -the hairy habiliments he is a bard. - -Some of Cotter’s stories come out of Africa and are “different,” as the -word goes. Some are “current among the colored folks of Louisville.” -These, too, are different. Some are tragedies and some are comedies and -some are tragi-comedies of everyday life among the Negroes. I will give -one entire tale here, selecting this particular one because of its -brevity, not its pre-eminence: - -THE BOY AND THE IDEAL - -Once upon a time a Mule, a Hog, a Snake, and a Boy met. Said the Mule: -“I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the heels. It is fine to have -heels so gifted. My heels make people cultivate distance.” - -Said the Hog: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the snout. It -is fine to have a fine snout. I keep people watching for my snout.” - -“No exchanging heels for snouts,” broke in the Mule. - -“No,” answered the Hog; “snouts are naturally above heels.” - -Said the Snake: “I eat to live, and live to cultivate my sting. The way -people shun me shows my greatness. Beget stings, comrades, and stings -will beget glory.” - -Said the Boy: “There is a star in my life like unto a star in the sky. I -eat and labor that I may think aright and feel aright. These rounds will -conduct me to my star. Oh, inviting star!” - -“I am not so certain of that,” said the Mule. “I have noticed your kind -and ever see some of myself in them. Your star is in the distance.” - -The Boy answered by smelling a flower and listening to the song of a -bird. The Mule looked at him and said: “He is all tenderness and care. -The true and the beautiful have robbed me of a kinsman. His star is -near.” - -Said the Boy: “I approach my star.” - -“I am not so certain of that,” interrupted the Hog. “I have noticed your -kind and I ever see some of myself in them. Your star is a delusion.” - -The Boy answered by painting the flower and setting the notes of the -bird’s song to music. - -The Hog looked at the boy and said: “His soul is attuned by nature. The -meddler in him is slain.” - -“I can all but touch my star,” cried the Boy. - -“I am not so certain of that,” remarked the Snake. “I have watched your -kind and ever see some of myself in them. Stings are nearer than stars.” - -The Boy answered by meditating upon the picture and music. The Snake -departed, saying that stings and stars cannot keep company. - -The Boy journeyed on, ever led by the star. Some distance away the Mule -was bemoaning the presence of his heels and trying to rid himself of -them by kicking a tree. The Hog was dividing his time between looking -into a brook and rubbing his snout on a rock to shorten it. The Snake -lay dead of its own bite. The Boy journeyed on, led by an ever inviting -star. - -(Negro Tales.--Joseph S. Cotter, The Cosmopolitan Press, New York, -1912.) - - * * * * * - -Yes--Uncle Remus, in reality--and not exactly so. No copy. Not every -like is the same. An Uncle Remus with culture and conscious art, yet -unspoilt, the native qualities strong. And how poetic those qualities -are! - -Well might one expect a teacher, if he writes verse, to write didactic -verse. But I think you will pronounce him to be an extraordinary teacher -and verse-writer who writes as Mr. Cotter does, for example, in: - -THE THRESHING FLOOR - - Thrice blessed he who wields the flail - Upon this century’s threshing floor; - A few slight strokes by him avail - More than a hundred would of yore. - - Around him lies the ripened grain - From every land and every age; - The weakest thresher should attain - Unto the wisdom of the sage. - - Ambitious youth, this is the wealth - The ages have bequeathed to thee. - Thou canst not take thy share by stealth - Nor by mere ingenuity. - - Thy better self must spur thee on - To win what time has made thy own; - No hand but labor’s yet has drawn - The sweets that labor’s hand has sown. - -In verse presuming to be lyrical we hearken for the lyrical cry. That -cry is in his lines, melodiously uttered, and poignant. For example: - - The flowers take the tears - Of the weeping night - And give them to the sun - For the day’s delight. - - My passion takes the joys - Of the laughing day - And melts them into tears - For my heart’s decay. - -The sweet sadness of those stanzas lingers with one. A stanza from a -poem entitled “The Nation’s Neglected Child” may help us to their -secret: - - I am not thy pampered steed, - I am not thy welcome dog; - I am of a lower breed - Even than thy Berkshire hog; - I am thy neglected child-- - Make me grow, but keep me wild. - -In many of Cotter’s verses there is a sonorous flow which is evidence of -poetic power made creative by passion. Didacticism and philosophy do not -destroy the lyrical quality. In _The Book’s Creed_ this teacher-poet -makes an appeal to his generation to be as much alive and as creative as -the creed makers of other days were. The slaves of the letter, the -mummers of mere formulas, he thus addresses: - - You are dead to all the Then, - You are dead to all the Now, - If you hold that former men - Wore the garland for your brow. - - Time and tide were theirs to brave, - Time and tide are yours to stem. - Bow not o’er their open grave - Till you drop your diadem. - - Honor all who strove and wrought, - Even to their tears and groans; - But slay not your honest thought - Through your reverence for their bones. - -Cotter is a wizard at rhyming. His “Sequel to the Pied Piper of Hamelin” -surpasses the original--Browning’s--in technique--that is, in rushing -rhythms and ingenious rhymes. It is an incredible success, with no hint -of a tour-de-force performance. Its content, too, is worthy of the -metrical achievement. I will lay the proof before the competent reader -in an extract or two from this remarkable accomplishment: - - The last sweet notes the piper blew - Were heard by the people far and wide; - And one by one and two by two - They flocked to the mountain-side. - - Some came, of course, intensely sad, - And some came looking fiercely mad, - And some came singing solemn hymns, - And some came showing shapely limbs, - And some came bearing the tops of yews, - And some came wearing wooden shoes, - And some came saying what they would do, - And some came praying (and loudly too), - And all for what? Can you not infer? - A-searching and lurching for the Pied Piper, - And the boys and girls he had taken away. - And all were ready now to pay - Any amount that he should say. - -So begins the _Sequel_. Another passage, near the end, will indicate the -trend of the story: - - The years passed by, as years will do, - When trouble is the master, - And always strives to bring to view - A new and worse disaster; - And sorrow, like a sorcerer, - Spread out her melancholy pall, - So that its folds enveloped all, - And each became her worshipper. - And not a single child was born - Through all the years thereafter; - If words sprang from the lips of scorn - None came from those of laughter. - -Finally, the inhabitants of Hamelin are passing through death’s portal, -and when all had departed: - - --a message went to Rat-land - - * * * * * - - And lo! a race of rats was at hand - - * * * * * - - They swarmed into the highest towers, - And loitered in the fairest bowers, - And sat down where the mayor sat, - And also in his Sunday hat; - And gnawed revengefully thereat. - With rats for mayor and rats for people, - With rats in the cellar and rats in the steeple, - With rats without and rats within, - Stood poor, deserted Hamelin. - -Like Dunbar, Cotter is a satirist of his people--or certain types of his -people--a gentle, humorous, affectionate satirist. His medium for satire -is dialect, inevitably. Sententious wisdom, irradiated with humor, -appears in these pieces in homely garb. In standard English, without -satire or humor that wisdom thus appears: - - What deeds have sprung from plow and pick! - What bank-rolls from tomatoes! - No dainty crop of rhetoric - Can match one of potatoes. - -The gospel of work has been set forth by our poet in a four-act poetic -drama entitled _Caleb, the Degenerate_. All the characters are Negroes. -The form is blank verse--blank verse of a very high order, too. The -language, like Shakespeare’s--though Browning rather than Shakespeare is -suggested--is always that of a poet. The wisdom is that of a man who has -observed closely and pondered deeply. Idealistic, philosophical, -poetical--such it is. It bears witness to no ordinary dramatic ability. - -“Best bard, because the wisest,” says our Israfel. Verily. “Sage” you -may call this man as well as “bard.” The proof is in poems and tales, -apologues and apothegms. Joseph Seamon Cotter is now sixty years of age. -Yet the best of him, according to good omens, is yet to be given forth, -in song, story, precept, and drama. His nature is opulent--the -cultivation began late and the harvest grows richer. - -The chief event of his life, I doubt not, remains to be mentioned--a -very sad one. This was the untimely death of his poet-son, Joseph S. -Cotter, Jr. Born of this sorrow was the following lyric: - - Oh, my way and thy way, - And life’s joy and wonder, - And thy day and my day - Are cloven asunder. - - Oh, my trust and thy trust, - And fair April weather, - And thy dust and my dust - Shall mingle together. - -_The Son_ - -Dead at the age of twenty-three years, Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., left -behind a thin volume of lyrics, entitled _The Band of Gideon_, and about -twenty sonnets of an unfinished sequence, and a little book of one-act -plays. I will presently place the remarkable title-poem of his book of -lyrics before the reader, but first I will give two minor pieces, -without comment: - -[Illustration: JOSEPH S. COTTER, JR.] - -RAIN MUSIC - - On the dusty earth-drum - Beats the falling rain; - Now a whispered murmur, - Now a louder strain. - - Slender silvery drumsticks, - On the ancient drum, - Beat the mellow music, - Bidding life to come. - - Chords of earth awakened, - Notes of greening spring, - Rise and fall triumphant - Over everything. - - Slender silvery drumsticks - Beat the long tattoo-- - God the Great Musician - Calling life anew. - -COMPENSATION - - I plucked a rose from out a bower fair, - That overhung my garden seat; - And wondered I if, e’er before, bloomed there - A rose so sweet. - - Enwrapt in beauty I scarce felt the thorn - That pricked me as I pulled the bud; - Till I beheld the rose, that summer morn, - Stained with my blood. - - I sang a song that thrilled the evening air, - With beauty somewhat kin to love, - And all men knew that lyric song so rare - Came from above. - - And men rejoiced to hear the golden strain; - But no man knew the price I paid, - Nor cared that out of my soul’s deathless pain - The song was made. - -The lyrical faculty is evinced by such poems. But other singers of our -day might have produced them--singers of the white race. Not so, I -think, of “The Band of Gideon.” Upon that poem is the stamp, not of -genius only, but of Negro genius. In it is re-incarnated, by a cultured, -creative mind, the very spirit of the old plantation songs and sermons. -The reader who has in his possession that background will respond to the -unique and powerful appeal of this poem. - -THE BAND OF GIDEON - - The band of Gideon roam the sky, - The howling wind is their war-cry, - The thunder’s roll is their trumpet’s peal - And the lightning’s flash their vengeful steel. - Each black cloud - Is a fiery steed. - And they cry aloud - With each strong deed, - “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” - - And men below rear temples high - And mock their God with reasons why, - And live in arrogance, sin, and shame, - And rape their souls for the world’s good name. - Each black cloud - Is a fiery steed. - And they cry aloud - With each strong deed, - “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” - - The band of Gideon roam the sky - And view the earth with baleful eye; - In holy wrath they scourge the land - With earthquake, storm, and burning brand. - Each black cloud - Is a fiery steed. - And they cry aloud - With each strong deed, - “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” - - The lightnings flash and the thunders roll, - And “Lord have mercy on my soul,” - Cry men as they fall on the stricken sod, - In agony searching for their God. - Each black cloud - Is a fiery steed. - And they cry aloud - With each strong deed, - “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” - - And men repent and then forget - That heavenly wrath they ever met. - The band of Gideon yet will come - And strike their tongues of blasphemy dumb. - Each black cloud - Is a fiery steed. - And they cry aloud - With each strong deed, - “The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” - -The reader, I predict, will be drawn again and again to this mysterious -poem. It will continue to haunt his imagination, and tease his thought. -The stamp of the African mind is upon it. Closely allied, on the one -hand by its august refrain to the Spirituals, on the other hand it -touches the most refined and perfected art; such, for example, as -Rossetti’s ballads or Vachel Lindsay’s cantatas. It can scarcely be -wondered at that the people of his race should call this untimely dead -singer their Negro Lycidas. - - -II. JAMES DAVID CORROTHERS - -THE 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 floral faëry. - 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 wingèd 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. - -Cherokee-Indian, Scotch-Irish, French, and African blood in James David -Corrothers, the author of this poem, makes his complexion, he supposed, -“about that of the original man.” The reader has already had, at the -beginning of the discussion of Dunbar, a sonnet from this poet. The -sonnet, the above poem, and the others given here were published in _The -Century Magazine_. Not unworthy of _The Century’s_ standards, the reader -must say. - -[Illustration: J. D. CORROTHERS] - -James David Corrothers was born in Michigan, July 2, 1869. His mother in -giving him life surrendered her own. His father never cared for him. -Sheltered for a few years by maternal relatives, he was out on the world -in early boyhood, dependent on his own resources. Soon, because he was a -Negro, he was a wanderer for work through several states. Often without -money, friends, or food, he slept out of doors, sometimes in zero -weather. At nineteen years of age, as before stated, he was shining -shoes in a Chicago barber shop. There he was “discovered.” - -Henry D. Lloyd was having his boots shined by young Corrothers when the -two fell into book talk. The distinguished writer was astonished at the -knowledge possessed by one engaged in such a menial occupation. Out of -this circumstance, it seems, the Negro boot-black became a student in -Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. By mowing lawns and doing -whatever odd jobs he could find he worked his way for three years in the -university. Then, by the kindness of Frances E. Willard, he had a year -in Bennett College, Greensboro, North Carolina. Prior to his entrance at -Northwestern there had been but one brief opportunity in his life for -attending school. But the wandering youth, battling against the adverse -fates, or, concretely stated, the disadvantage of being a Negro, had -managed somehow to make great books his companions. Hence, he had -entered what Carlyle calls “the true modern university.” Hence, his -literary conversation with Mr. Lloyd. - -Out of those early struggles, and perhaps also out of later bitter -experiences, came such poems as the following: - -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_! - -Even though his face be “red like Adam’s,” and even though his art be -noble like that of the masters of song, yet had Mr. Corrothers, even in -the republic of letters, felt the handicap of his complexion, as this -sonnet bears witness: - -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. - - Death has silenced the muse of this dark singer, - one of the best hitherto. That his endowment was - uncommon and that his achievement, as evinced by - these poems, is one of distinction, to use Mr. - Howells’s word, every reader equipped to judge - of poetry must admit. - - -III. A GROUP OF SINGING JOHNSONS - -In all rosters the name Johnson claims liberal space. Five verse-smiths -with that cognomen will be presented in this book, and there is a sixth. -These many Johnsons are no further related to one another, so far as I -know, than that they are all Adam’s offspring, and poets. Only three of -them will be presented in this chapter: James Weldon Johnson, of -Florida, author of _Fifty Years and Other Poems_ (1917); Charles Bertram -Johnson, of Missouri, author of _Songs of My People_ (1918); Fenton -Johnson, of Chicago, author of _A Little Dreaming_ (1914); _Unions of -the Dusk_ (1915), and _Songs of the Soil_ (1916). The fourth and fifth -are women, and will find a place in another group; the sixth is Adolphus -Johnson, author of _The Silver Chord_, Philadelphia, 1915. The three -mentioned above will be treated in the order in which they have been -named. - - -_1. James Weldon Johnson_ - -Now of New York, but born in Florida and reared in the South, James -Weldon Johnson is a man of various abilities, accomplishments, and -activities. He was graduated with the degrees of A. B. and A. M. from -Atlanta University and later studied for three years in Columbia -University. First a school-principal, then a practitioner of the law, he -followed at last the strongest propensity and turned author. His -literary work includes light operas, for which his brother, J. Rosamond -Johnson, composed the music, and a novel entitled _The Autobiography of -an Ex-Colored Man_. Having been United States consul in two -Latin-American countries, he is a master of Spanish and has made -translations of Spanish plays and poems. The English libretto of -_Goyescas_ was made by him for the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1915. -He is also one of the ablest editorial writers in the country. In the -_Public Ledger’s_ contest of 1916 he won the third prize. His editorials -are widely syndicated in the Negro weekly press. Poems of his have -appeared in _The Century_, _The Crisis_, and _The Independent_. - -[Illustration: JAMES WELDON JOHNSON] - -Professor Brander Matthews in his Introduction to _Fifty Years and Other -Poems_ speaks of “the superb and soaring stanzas” of the title-poem and -describes it as “a poem sonorous in its diction, vigorous in its -workmanship, elevated in its imagination, and sincere in its emotion.” -Doubtless this will seem like the language of exaggeration. The sceptic, -however, must withhold judgment until he has read the poem, too long for -presentation here. Mr. Johnson’s poetical qualities can be represented -in this place only by briefer though inferior productions. A poem of -special significance, and characterized by the qualities noted by -Professor Matthews in “Fifty Years,” is the following: - -O SOUTHLAND! - - O Southland! O Southland! - Have you not heard the call, - The trumpet blown, the word made known - To the nations, one and all? - The watchword, the hope-word, - Salvation’s present plan? - A gospel new, for all--for you: - Man shall be saved by man. - - O Southland! O Southland! - Do you not hear to-day - The mighty beat of onward feet, - And know you not their way? - ’Tis forward, ’tis upward, - On to the fair white arch - Of Freedom’s dome, and there is room - For each man who would march. - - O Southland, fair Southland! - Then why do you still cling - To an idle age and a musty page, - To a dead and useless thing? - ’Tis springtime! ’Tis work-time! - The world is young again! - And God’s above, and God is love, - And men are only men. - - O Southland! my Southland! - O birthland! do not shirk - The toilsome task, nor respite ask, - But gird you for the work. - Remember, remember - That weakness stalks in pride; - That he is strong who helps along - The faint one at his side. - -For pure lyric beauty and exquisite pathos, Wordsworthian in both -respects, but no hint of imitation, the following stanzas may be set, -without disadvantage to them, by the side of any in our literature: - - The glory of the day was in her face, - The beauty of the night was in her eyes, - And over all her loveliness, the grace - Of Morning blushing in the early skies. - - And in her voice, the calling of the dove; - Like music of a sweet, melodious part. - And in her smile, the breaking light of love; - And all the gentle virtues in her heart. - - And now the glorious day, the beauteous night, - The birds that signal to their mates at dawn, - To my dull ears, to my tear-blinded sight - Are one with all the dead, since she is gone. - -Yet one other poem of this fine singer’s I will give, selecting from not -a few that press for the restricted space. The easy flow of the verse -and the ready rhyme will be remarked--and that supreme quality of good -lyric poetry, austere simplicity. - -THE YOUNG WARRIOR - - Mother, shed no mournful tears, - But gird me on my sword; - And give no utterance to thy fears, - But bless me with thy word. - - The lines are drawn! The fight is on! - A cause is to be won! - Mother, look not so white and wan; - Give Godspeed to thy son. - - Now let thine eyes my way pursue - Where’er my footsteps fare; - And when they lead beyond thy view, - Send after me a prayer. - - But pray not to defend from harm, - Nor danger to dispel; - Pray, rather, that with steadfast arm - I fight the battle well. - - Pray, mother of mine, that I always keep - My heart and purpose strong, - My sword unsullied and ready to leap - Unsheathed against the wrong. - -Arduous labors in other fields than poetry threaten to silence Mr. -Johnson’s muse, and that is to be regretted. - - -2. _Charles Bertram Johnson_ - -School-teacher, preacher, poet--this is Charles Bertram Johnson of -Missouri. And in Missouri there is no voice more tuneful, no artistry in -song any finer, than his. Nor in so bold an assertion am I forgetting -the sweet voice and exquisite artistry of Sarah Teasdale. Mr. Johnson’s -art is not unlike hers in all that makes hers most charming. Only there -is not so much of his that attains to perfection of form. On pages 52 -and 63 were given two of his quatrain poems. These were of his people. -But a lyric poet should sing himself. That is of the essence of lyric -poetry. In so singing, however, the poet reveals not only his individual -life, but that of his race to the view of the world. Another quatrain -poem, personal in form, may be accepted as of racial interpretation: - -[Illustration: CHARLES BERTRAM JOHNSON] - -SOUL AND STAR - - So oft from out the verge afar - The dear dreams throng and throng, - Sometimes I think my soul a star, - And life a pulséd song. - -Born at Callao, Missouri, October 5, 1880, of a Kentucky mother and a -Virginia father, Charles Bertram Johnson attended a one-room school -“across the railroad track,” where--who can explain this?--he was -“Introduced to Bacon, Shakespeare, and the art of rhyming.” It reads -like an old story. Some freak of a schoolmaster whose head is filled -with “useless” lore--poetry, tales, and “such stuff”--nurturing a child -of genius into song. But it was Johnson’s mother who was the great -influence in his life. She was an “adept at rhyming” and “she initiated -me into the world of color and melody”--so writes our poet. It is always -the mother. Then, by chance--but how marvelously chance comes to the aid -of the predestined!--by chance, he learns of Dunbar and his poetry. The -ambition to be a poet of his people like Dunbar possesses him. He knows -the path to that goal is education. He therefore makes his way to a -little college at Macon, Missouri, from which, after five years, he is -graduated--without having received any help in the art of poetry, -however. Two terms at a summer school and special instruction by -correspondence seem to have aided him here, or to have induced the -belief that he had been aided. For twenty-odd years he followed the -profession of teaching. For ten years of that period he also preached. -The ministry now claims his entire energies, and the muse knocks less -and less frequently at his door. - -Yet he still sings. In a recent number of _The Crisis_ I find a poem of -his that in suggesting a life of toil growing to a peaceful close is -filled with soothing melody: - -OLD FRIENDS - - Sit here before my grate, - Until it’s ashen gray, - Or till the night grows late, - And talk the time away. - - I cannot think to sleep, - And miss your golden speech, - My bed of dreams will keep-- - You here within my reach. - - I have so much to say, - The time is short at best, - A bit of toil and play, - And after that comes rest. - - But you and I know now - The wisdom of the soul, - The years that seamed the brow - Have made our visions whole. - - Sit here before my grate - Until the ash is cold; - The things you say of late - Are fine as shriven gold. - -Even though one be born to sing, if circumstances have made him a -preacher he may be expected to moralize his song. Whether we shall be -reconciled to this will depend on the art with which it is done. If the -moral idea be a sweet human one, and if the verse still be melifluous, -we will submit, and our delight will be twofold--ethical and esthetical. -We will put our preacher-poet of Missouri to the test: - -SO MUCH - - So much of love I need, - And tender passioned care, - Of human fault and greed - To make me unaware: - - So much of love I owe, - That, ere my life be done, - How shall I keep His will - To owe not any one? - -Truth is, Mr. Johnson is not given to preaching in verse any more than -other poets. His sole aim is beauty. He assures me it is truth. Instead -of admitting disagreement I only assert that, being a poet, he must find -all truth beautiful. It is only for relative thinking we need the three -terms, truth, goodness, and beauty. - -I will conclude this presentation of the Missouri singer with a lyrical -sermonette: - -A RAIN SONG - - Chill the rain falls, chill! - Dull gray the world; the vale - Rain-swept; wind-swept the hill; - “But gloom and doubt prevail,” - My heart breaks forth to say. - - Ere thus its sorrow-note, - “Cheer up! Cheer up, to-day! - To-morrow is to be!” - Babbled from a joyous throat, - A robin’s in a mist-gray tree. - - Then off to keep a tryst-- - He preened his drabbled cloak-- - Doughty little optimist!-- - As if in answer, broke - The sunlight through that oak. - - -_3. Fenton Johnson_ - -Dreams and visions--such are the treasures of suffering loyal hearts: -dreams, visions, and song. Happy even in their sorrows the people to -whom God has given poets to be their spokesmen to the world. Else their -hearts should stifle with woe. As the prophet was of old so in these -times the poet. As a prophet speaks Fenton Johnson, his heart yearning -toward the black folk of our land: - -THESE ARE MY PEOPLE - - These are my people, I have built for them - A castle in the cloister of my heart; - And I shall fight that they may dwell therein. - The God that gave Sojourner tongue of fire - Has made with me a righteous covenant - That these, my brothers of the dusk, shall rise - To Sinai and thence in purple walk - A newer Canaan, vineyards of the West. - The rods that chasten us shall break as straw - And fire consume the godless in the South; - The hand that struck the helpless of my race - Shall wither as a leaf in drear November, - And liberty, the nectar God has blest, - Shall flow as free as wine in Babylon. - O God of Covenants, forget us not! - -Fenton Johnson seems to be more deeply rooted in the song-traditions of -his people than are most of his fellow-poets. To him the classic -Spirituals afford inspiration and pattern. Whoever is familiar with -those “canticles of love and woe” will recognize their influence -throughout Mr. Johnson’s three volumes of song. I shall make no attempt -here to illustrate this truth but shall rather select a piece or two -that will represent the poet’s general qualities. Other poems more -typical of him as a melodist could be found but these have special -traits that commend them for this place. - -THE PLAINT OF THE FACTORY CHILD - - Mother, must I work all day? - All the day? Ay, all the day? - Must my little hands be torn? - And my heart bleed, all forlorn? - I am but a child of five, - And the street is all alive - With the tops and balls and toys,-- - Pretty tops and balls and toys. - - Day in, day out, I toil--toil! - And all that I know is toil; - Never laugh as others do, - Never cry as others do, - Never see the stars at night, - Nor the golden glow of sunlight,-- - And all for but a silver coin,-- - Just a worthless silver coin. - - Would that death might come to me! - That blessed death might come to me, - And lead me to waters cool, - Lying in a tranquil pool, - Up there where the angels sing, - And the ivy tendrils cling - To the land of play and song,-- - Fairy land of play and song. - -THE MULATTO’S SONG - - Die, you vain but sweet desires! - Die, you living, burning fires! - I am like a Prince of France,-- - Like a prince whose noble sires - Have been robbed of heritage; - I am phantom derelict, - Drifting on a flaming sea. - - Everywhere I go, I strive, - Vainly strive for greater things; - Daisies die, and stars are cold, - And canary never sings; - Where I go they mock my name, - Never grant me liberty, - Chance to breathe and chance to do. - -_The Vision of Lazarus_, contained in _A Little Dreaming_, is a -blank-verse poem of about three-hundred lines, original, well-sustained, -imaginative, and deeply impressive. - -In one of the newer methods of verse, and yet with a splendid suggestion -of the old Spirituals, I will take from a recent magazine a poem by Mr. -Johnson that will show how the vision of his people is turned toward the -future, from the welter of struggling forces in the World War: - -THE NEW DAY - - From a vision red with war I awoke and saw the Prince - of Peace hovering over No Man’s Land. - Loud the whistles blew and thunder of cannon was drowned - by the happy shouting of the people. - From the Sinai that faces Armageddon I heard this chant - from the throats of white-robed angels: - - Blow your trumpets, little children! - From the East and from the West, - From the cities in the valley, - From God’s dwelling on the mountain, - Blow your blast that Peace might know - She is Queen of God’s great army. - With the crying blood of millions - We have written deep her name - In the Book of all the Ages; - With the lilies in the valley, - With the roses by the Mersey, - With the golden flower of Jersey, - We have crowned her smooth young temples. - Where her footsteps cease to falter - Golden grain will greet the morning, - Where her chariot descends - Shall be broken down the altar - Of the gods of dark disturbance. - Nevermore shall men know suffering, - Nevermore shall women wailing - Shake to grief the God of Heaven. - From the East and from the West, - From the cities in the valley, - From God’s dwelling on the mountain, - Little children, blow your trumpets! - - From Ethiopia, groaning ’neath her heavy burdens I - heard the music of the old slave songs. - I heard the wail of warriors, dusk brown, who grimly - fought the fight of others in the trenches of Mars. - I heard the plea of blood-stained men of dusk and - the crimson in my veins leapt furiously: - - Forget not, O my brothers, how we fought - In No Man’s Land that peace might come again! - Forget not, O my brothers, how we gave - Red blood to save the freedom of the world! - We were not free, our tawny hands were tied; - But Belgium’s plight and Serbia’s woes we shared - Each rise of sun or setting of the moon. - So when the bugle blast had called us forth - We went not like the surly brute of yore, - But, as the Spartan, proud to give the world - The freedom that we never knew nor shared. - These chains, O brothers mine, have weighed us down - As Samson in the temple of the gods; - Unloosen them and let us breathe the air - That makes the goldenrod the flower of Christ; - For we have been with thee in No Man’s Land, - Through lake of fire and down to Hell itself; - And now we ask of thee our liberty, - Our freedom in the land of Stars and Stripes. - - I am glad that the Prince of Peace is hovering over No Man’s Land. - - -4. _Adolphus Johnson_ - -From the _Preface_ of Adolphus Johnson’s _The Silver Chord_ I will take -a paragraph that is more poetic and perfect in expression than any -stanza in his book. Poetry, I think, is in him, but when he wrote these -rhymes he was not yet sufficiently disciplined in expression. But this -is how he can say a thing in prose: - -“As the Goddess of Music takes down her lute, touches its silver chords, -and sets the summer melodies of nature to words, so an inspiration -comes to me in my profoundest slumbers and gently awakens my highest -faculties to the finest thought and serenest contemplation herein -expressed. Always remember that a book is your best friend when it -compels you to think, disenthralls your reason, enkindles your hopes, -vivifies your imagination, and makes easier all the burdens of your -daily life.” - - -_IV. William Stanley Braithwaite_ - -The critical and the creative faculties rarely dwell together in -harmony. One or the other finally predominates. In the case of Mr. -Braithwaite it seems to be the critical faculty. He has preferred, it -seems, to be America’s chief anthologist, encouraging others up rugged -Parnassus, rather than himself to stand on the heights of song. Since -1913 he has edited a series of annual anthologies of American magazine -verse, which he has provided with critical reviews of the verse output -of the respective year. Of several anthologies of English verse also he -is the editor. Three books of original verse stand to his credit: -_Lyrics of Life and Love_ (1904), _The House of Falling Leaves_ (1908), -and _Sandy Star and Willie Gee_ (1922). These dates seem to prove that -the creative impulse has waned. - -Verse artistry, in simple forms, reaches a degree of excellence in Mr. -Braithwaite’s lyrics that has rarely been surpassed in our times. -Graceful and esthetically satisfying expression is given to elusive or -mystical and rare fancies. I will give one of his brief lyrics as an -example of the qualities to which I allude: - -SANDY STAR - - No more from out the sunset, - No more across the foam, - No more across the windy hills - Will Sandy Star come home. - - He went away to search it, - With a curse upon his tongue, - And in his hands the staff of life - Made music as it swung. - - I wonder if he found it, - And knows the mystery now: - Our Sandy Star who went away - With the secret on his brow. - -In a number of Mr. Braithwaite’s lyrics, as in this one, there is an -atmosphere of mystery that, with the charming simplicity of manner, -strongly suggests Blake. There is a strangeness in all beauty, it has -been said. There is commonly something of Faëryland in the finest lyric -poetry. Another lyric illustrating this quality in Mr. Braithwaite is -the following: - -IT’S A LONG WAY - - It’s a long way the sea-winds blow - Over the sea-plains blue,-- - But longer far has my heart to go - Before its dreams come true. - - It’s work we must, and love we must, - And do the best we may, - And take the hope of dreams in trust - To keep us day by day. - - It’s a long way the sea-winds blow-- - But somewhere lies a shore-- - Thus down the tide of Time shall flow - My dreams forevermore. - -Mr. Braithwaite’s art rises above race. He seems not to be -race-conscious in his writing, whether prose or verse. Yet no man can -say but that race has given his poetry the distinctive quality I have -indicated. In this connection a most interesting poem is his “A New -England Spinster.” The detachment is perfect, the analysis is done in -the spirit of absolute art. I will quote but two of its dozen or so -stanzas: - - She dwells alone, and never heeds - How strange may sound her own footfall, - And yet is prompt to others’ needs, - Or ready at a neighbor’s call. - - But still her world is one apart, - Serene above desire and change; - There are no hills beyond her heart, - Beyond her gate, no winds that range. - -Here is the true artist’s imagination that penetrates to the secrets of -life. No poet’s lyrics, with their deceptive simplicity, better reward -study for a full appreciation of their idea. So much of suggestion to -the reader of the poems which follow: - -FOSCATI - - Blest be Foscati! You’ve heard tell - How--spirit and flesh of him--blown to flame, - Leaped the stars for heaven, dropped back to hell, - And felt no shame. - - I here indite this record of his journey: - The splendor of his epical will to perform - Life’s best, with the lance of Truth at Tourney-- - Till caught in the storm. - - Of a woman’s face and hair like scented clover, - Te Deums, Lauds, and Magnificat, he - Praised with tongue of saint, heart of lover-- - Missed all, but found Foscati! - -AUTUMN SADNESS - - The warm October rain fell upon his dream, - When once again the autumn sadness stirred, - And murmured through his blood, like a hidden stream - In a forest, unheard. - - The drowsy rain battered against his delight - Of the half forgotten poignancies, - That settle in the dusk of an autumn night - On a world one hears and sees. - - One was, he thought, an echo merely, - A glow enshadowed of truths untraced; - But the autumn sadness, brought him yearly, - Was a joy embraced. - -THANKING GOD - - The way folks had of thanking God - He found annoying, till he thought - Of flame and coolness in the sod-- - Of balms and blessings that they wrought. - - And so the habit grew, and then-- - Of when and how he did not care-- - He found his God as other men - The mystic verb in a grammar of prayer. - - He never knelt, nor uttered words-- - His laughter felt no chastening rod; - “My being,” he said, “is a choir of birds, - And all my senses are thanking God.” - -Mr. Braithwaite is thoroughly conversant, as these selections indicate, -with the subtleties and finest effects of the art poetic, and his -impulses to write spring from the deepest human speculations, the purest -motives of art. Hence in his work he takes his place among the few. - - -_V. George Reginald Margetson_ - -Under tropical suns, amid the tropical luxuriance of nature, developed -the many-hued imagination of the subject of this sketch. His nature is -tropical, for Mr. Margetson is a prolific bard: _Songs of Life_, _The -Fledgling Bard and the Poetry Society_, _Ethiopia’s Flight_, _England in -the West Indies_--four published books, and more yet unpublished--are -proof. No excerpts can fully reveal the distinctive quality of Mr. -Margetson’s poetry--its sonorous and ever-varying flow, like a mountain -stream, its descriptive richness in which it resembles his native -islands. For he was born in the British West Indies, and there lived the -first twenty years of his life. Coming to America in 1897, his home has -been in Boston or its environment since that time. Educated in the -Moravian School at St. Kitts, he has lived with and in the English poets -from Spenser to Byron--Byron seems to have been his favorite--and so has -cultivated his native talent. I can give here but one brief lyric from -his pen. - -[Illustration: GEORGE REGINALD MARGETSON] - -THE LIGHT OF VICTORY - - In the East a star is rising, - Breaking through the clouds of war, - With a light old arts revising - Shattering steel and iron bar. - Freedom’s heirs with banners blazing, - Emblems of Democracy, - At the magic light are gazing - Battling with Autocracy. - - Through the night brave souls are marching - With the armies of the Free; - Where the Stars and Stripes o’er-arching - Form a sheltering canopy. - Allies! hold a front united! - Shaping well our destiny; - Let each brutal wrong be righted - In the drive for Liberty! - - -_VI. William Moore_ - -The productions I have seen in the Negro magazines and newspapers from -William Moore’s pen give me the idea of a poet distinctly original and -distinctly endowed with imagination. If there appears some obscurity in -his poems let it not be too hastily set down against him as a fault. -Some ideas are intrinsically obscure. The expression of them that should -be lucid would be false, inadequate. Some poets there needs must be who, -escaping from the inevitable, the commonplace, will transport us out -into infinity to confront the eternal mysteries. Mr. Moore does this in -two sonnets which I will give to represent his poetic work: - -EXPECTANCY - - I do not care for sleep, I’ll wait awhile - For Love to come out of the darkness, wait - For laughter, gifted with the frequent fate - Of dusk-lit hope, to touch me with the smile - Of moon and star and joy of that last mile - Before I reach the sea. The ships are late - And mayhap laden with the precious freight - Dawn brings from Life’s eternal summer isle. - - And should I find the sweeter fruits of dream-- - The oranges of love and mating song-- - I’ll laugh so true the morn will gayly seem - Endless and ships full laden with a throng - Of beauty, dreams and loves will come to me - Out of the surge of yonder silver sea. - -AS THE OLD YEAR PASSED - - I stood with dear friend Death awhile last night, - Out where the stars shone with a lustre true - In sacred dreams and all the old and new - Of love and life winged in a silver flight - Off to the sea of peace that waits where white, - Pale silences melt in the tranquil blue - Of skies so tender beauty doth imbue - The time with holiness and singing light. - - My heart is Life, my soul, O Death, is thine! - Is thine to kiss with yearning life again, - Is thine to strengthen and to sweet incline - To peace and mellowed dream of joy’s refrain. - I’ll stand with Death again to-night, I think, - Out where the stars reveal life’s deeper brink. - - -_VII. Joshua Henry Jones, Jr._ - -[Illustration: JOSHUA HENRY JONES, JR.] - -Poets are born and nurtured in all conditions of life: Joseph Cotter the -elder was a slave-woman’s child; Dunbar wrote his first book between the -runs of the elevator he tended; Leon R. Harris was left in infancy to -the dreary shelter of an orphanage, then indentured to a brutal farmer; -Carmichael came from the cabin of an unlettered farmer in the Black Belt -of Alabama; of a dozen others the story is similar. Born in poverty, up -through adversities they struggled, with little human help save perhaps -from the croons and caresses of a singing mother, and a few terms at a -wretched school, they toiled into the kingdom of knowledge and entered -the world of poetry. Some, however, have had the advantages afforded by -parents of culture and of means. Among these is the subject of this -sketch, the son of Bishop J. H. Jones, of the African Methodist -Episcopal Church. He has had the best educational opportunity offered -by American colleges. He is a graduate of Brown University. Writing has -been his employment since graduation, and he has been on the staffs of -several New England papers. His first book of poems, entitled _The Heart -of the World_ (1919), now in the second edition, reveals at once a -student of poetry and an independent artist in verse. His second book, -_Poems of the Four Seas_ (1921), shows that his vein is still rich in -ore. - -In Chapter VIII I give his “Goodbye, Old Year.” Another poem of similar -technique takes for its title the last words of Colonel Roosevelt: “Turn -out the light, please.” The reader cannot but note the sense of proper -effect exhibited in the short sentences, the very manner of a dying man. -But more than this will be perceived in this poem. It will seem to have -sprung out of the world-weary soul of the young poet himself. Struggle, -grief, weariness in the strife, have been his also. Hence: - -TURN OUT THE LIGHT - - Turn out the light. Now would I slumber, - I’m weary with the toil of day. - Let me forget my pains to number. - Turn out the light. Dreams come to play. - - Turn out the light. The hours were dreary. - Clouds of despair long hid the sun. - I’ve battled hard and now I’m weary. - Turn out the light. My day is done. - - I’ve done life’s best gloom’s ways to brighten-- - I’ve scattered cheer from heart to heart, - And where I could I’ve sought to righten - The wrongs of men ere day depart. - - This morn ’twas bright with hope--and cheery. - This noon gave courage--made me brave. - But as the sun sank I grew weary - Till now my soul for rest doth crave. - - Turn out the light. I’ve done my duty - To friend and enemy as well. - I go to sleep where things of beauty - In glitt’ring chambers ever dwell. - - Turn out the light. Now would I slumber. - To rest--to dream--soon go we all. - Let’s hope we wake soul free of cumber. - Turn out the light. Dream comrades call. - -The next piece I select from Mr. Jones’s first book will represent his -talent in another sphere. I suggest that comparison might be made -between this song in literary English and Mr. Johnson’s Negro love song -in dialect, page 226. - -A SOUTHERN LOVE SONG - - Dogwoods all a-bloom - Perfume earth’s big room, - White full moon is gliding o’er the sky serene. - Quiet reigns about, - In the house and out; - Hoot owl in the hollow mopes with solemn mien. - Birds have gone to rest - In each tree-top nest; - Cotton fields a-shimmer flash forth silver-green. - - O’er the wild cane brake, - Whip-poor-wills awake, - And they speak in tender voicings, Heart, of You. - Answering my call, - Through the leafy hall, - Telling how I’m waiting for your tripping, Sue. - All the world is glad, - Just because I’m mad. - Sense-bereft am I through my great love for you. - - Night is all a-smile, - Happy all the while. - That is why my heart so filled with song o’erflows. - I have tarried long, - Lilting here my song. - And I’ll ever waiting be till life’s step slows. - Come to me, my girl, - Precious more than pearl, - I’ll be waiting for you where the grapevine grows. - - How my heart doth yearn, - And with anguish burn, - Hungry for sweet pains awaked with your embrace. - Starward goes my cry. - Echo hears my sigh. - Heaven itself its pity at my plight shows trace. - Parson waits to wed. - Soon the nuptials said. - I’ve a rose-clad cottage reared for you to grace. - -The title-piece of Mr. Jones’s first volume reveals his mastery of -effective form and his command of the language of passionate appeal. The -World War, in which the Negroes of the country gave liberally and -heroically, both of blood and treasure, for democracy, quickened failing -hopes in them and kindled anew their aspirations. In this poem the -writer speaks for his entire race: - -THE HEART OF THE WORLD - - In the heart of the world is the call for peace-- - Up-surging, symphonic roar. - ’Tis ill of all clashings; it seeks release - From fetters of greed and gore. - The winds of the battlefields echo the sigh - Of heroes slumbering deep, - Who gave all they had and now dreamlessly lie - Where the bayonets sent them to sleep. - - _Peace for the wealthy; peace for the poor; - Peace on the hillside, and peace on the moor._ - - In the heart of the world is the call for right: - For fingers to bind up the wound, - Slashed deep by the ruthless, harsh hand of might, - When Justice is crushed to the ground. - ’Tis ill of the fevers of fear of the strong-- - Of jealousies--prejudice--pride. - “Is there no ideal that’s proof against wrong?” - Man asks of the man at his side. - - _Right for the lowly; right for the great; - Right all to pilot to happiness’ gate._ - - In the heart of the world is the call for love: - White heart--Red--Yellow--and Black. - Each face turns to Bethlehem’s bright star above, - Though wolves of self howl at each back. - The whole earth is lifting its voice in a prayer - That nations may learn to endure, - Without killing and maiming, but doing what’s fair - With a soul that is noble and pure. - - _Love in weak peoples; love in the strong; - Love that will banish all hatred and wrong._ - - In the heart of the world is the call of God; - East--West--and North--and South. - Stirring, deep-yearning, breast-heaving call for God - A-tremble behind each mouth. - The heart’s ill of torments that rend men’s souls. - Skyward lift all faiths and hopes; - Across all the oceans the evidence rolls, - Refreshing all life’s arid slopes. - - _God in the highborn; God in the low; - God calls us, world-brothers. Hark ye! and know._ - -From _Poems of the Four Seas_ I will take a piece that gives the Negro -background for the yearning expressed in the foregoing poem: - -BROTHERS - - They bind his feet; they thong his hands - With hard hemp rope and iron bands. - They scourge his back in ghoulish glee; - And bleed his flesh;--men, mark ye--free. - They still his groans with fiendish shout, - Where flesh streams red they ply the knout. - Thus sons of men feed lust to kill - And yet, oh God! they’re brothers still. - - They build a pyre of torch and flame - While Justice weeps in deepest shame. - E’en Death in pity bows its head, - Yet ’midst these men no prayer is said. - They gather up charred flesh and bone-- - Mementos--boasting brave deed done. - They sip of gore their souls to fill; - Drink deep of blood their hands did spill. - - Go tell the world what men have done - Who prate of God and yet have none; - Think of themselves as wholly good, - Blaspheme the name of brotherhood; - Who hearken not as brothers cry - For brother’s chance to live and die. - To keep a demon’s murder tryst - They’d rend the sepulcher of Christ. - - -_VIII. Walter Everette Hawkins_ - -CREDO - - I am an Iconoclast. - I break the limbs of idols - And smash the traditions of men. - - I am an Anarchist. - I believe in war and destruction-- - Not in the killing of men, - But the killing of creed and custom. - - I am an Agnostic. - I accept nothing without questioning. - It is my inherent right and duty - To ask the reason why. - To accept without a reason - Is to debase one’s humanity - And destroy the fundamental process - In the ascertainment of Truth. - - I believe in Justice and Freedom. - To me Liberty is priestly and kingly; - Freedom is my Bride, - Liberty my Angel of Light, - Justice my God. - - I oppose all laws of state or country, - All creeds of church and social orders, - All conventionalities of society and system - Which cross the path of the light of Freedom - Or obstruct the reign of Right. - -This is a faithful self-characterization--such a man in reality is -Walter Everette Hawkins. A fearless and independent and challenging -spirit. He is the rare kind of man that must put everything to the -severe test of absolute principles. He hates shams, hypocrisies, -compromises, chicaneries, injustices. His poems are the bold and -faithful expressions of his personality. Free he has ever been, free he -will be ever, striking right out for freedom and truth. Such a -personality is refreshing to meet, whether you encounter it in the flesh -or in a book. - -[Illustration: WALTER EVERETTE HAWKINS] - -Born about thirty-five years ago, on a little farm in North Carolina, -the thirteenth child of ex-slave parents, young Hawkins, one may -imagine, was not opulent in this world’s goods. Nor were his -opportunities such as are usually considered thrilling. A few terms of -miserable schooling in the village of Warrenton, the fragments of a few -more terms in a school maintained by the African Methodist Church, -then--“the University of Hard Knocks.” In the two first-named schools -the independent-spirited lad seems not to have gotten along well with -his teachers, hence a few dismissals. Always too prone to ask -troublesome, challenging questions, too prone to doubts and reflections, -he was thought incorrigible. In his “University” he chose his own -masters--the great free spirits of the ages--and at the feet of these he -was teachable, even while the knocks were hardest. - -A lover of wild nature and able to commune with nature’s spirit, deeply -fond also of communing with the world’s master minds in books, Mr. -Hawkins is by necessity--while his spirit soars--the slave of routine -toil, being, until recently, a mail clerk in the post office of the City -of Washington. “My only recreation,” he writes me, “is in stealing away -to be with the masters, the intellectual dynamos, of the world, who -converse with me without wincing and deliver me the key to life’s -riddle.” - -A true expression of himself I said Mr. Hawkins’s poems are. In no -degree are they fictions. As a companion to _Credo_, quoted to introduce -him, I will give the last poem in his book, which will again set him -before us as he is: - -HERO OF THE ROAD - - Let me seek no statesman’s mantle, - Let me seek no victor’s wreath, - Let my sword unstained in battle - Still lie rusting in its sheath; - Let my garments be unsullied, - Let no man’s blood to me cling; - Life is love and earth is heaven, - If I may but soar and sing. - - This then is my sternest struggle, - Ease the load and sing my song, - Lift the lame and cheer the cheerless - As they plod the road along; - And we see ourselves transfigured - In a new and bigger plan; - Man transformed, his own Messiah, - God embodied into man. - -For the whining craven class of men Mr. Hawkins has little respect: - - The man who complains - When the world is all song, - Or dares to sit mute - When the world is all wrong; - Who barters his freedom - Vile honors to win, - Deserves but to die - With the vilest of men. - -Upon the times in which we live his judgment is severe. His -condemnation, however, bears witness to that earnestness of soul and -that idealism of spirit which will not let the world repose in its -wickedness. From a list of several poems attesting this I select the -following as perhaps the most complete in form: - -THE DEATH OF JUSTICE - - These the dread days which the seers have foretold, - These the fell years which the prophets have dreamed; - Visions they saw in those full days of old, - The fathers have sinned and the children blasphemed. - Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, - Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. - - We have come to the travail of troublous times, - Justice must bow before Moloch and Baal; - Blasphemous prayers for the triumph of crimes, - High sounds the cry of the children who wail. - Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, - Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. - - In the brute strength of the sword men rely, - They count not Justice in reckoning things; - Whom their lips worship their hearts crucify, - This the oblation the votary brings. - Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, - Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. - - Locked in death-struggle humanity’s host, - Seeking revenge with the dagger and sword; - This is the pride which the Pharisees boast, - Man damns his brother in the name of his Lord. - Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, - Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. - - Time dims the glare of the pomp and applause, - Vainglorious monarchs and proud princes fall; - Until the death of Time revokes his laws, - His awful mandate shall reign over all. - Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, - Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. - -A number of Mr. Hawkins’s productions reveal possibilities of beauty and -effectiveness, which he had not the patience or the skill to realize. -One imagines that he has never been able to bring his spirit to a -submissive study of the minutiæ of metrical composition. A poet _in -esse_--or _in posse_--is all that nature ever makes. And even the most -free spirit must know well the traditions. Whether this iconoclast knows -the Cavalier traditions of English poetry may be left to conjecture, but -the following piece, illustrating Mr. Hawkins’s faults and virtues as a -singer, will prove his kinship to the poetic tribe of which Lovelace -and Suckling were conspicuous members: - -ASK ME WHY I LOVE YOU - - Ask me why I love you, dear, - And I will ask the rose - Why it loves the dews of Spring - At the Winter’s close; - Why the blossoms’ nectared sweets - Loved by questing bee,-- - I will gladly answer you, - If they answer me. - - Ask me why I love you, dear, - I will ask the flower - Why it loves the Summer sun, - Or the Summer shower; - I will ask the lover’s heart - Why it loves the moon, - Or the star-besprinkled skies - In a night in June. - - Ask me why I love you, dear, - I will ask the vine - Why its tendrils trustingly - Round the oak entwine; - Why you love the mignonette - Better than the rue,-- - If you will but answer me, - I will answer you. - - Ask me why I love you, dear, - Let the lark reply, - Why his heart is full of song - When the twilight’s nigh; - Why the lover heaves a sigh - When her heart is true; - If you will but answer me, - I will answer you. - - -_IX. Claude McKay_ - -[Illustration: CLAUDE MCKAY] - -An English subject, being born and growing to manhood in Jamaica, Claude -McKay, a pure blood Negro, was first discovered as a poet by English -critics. In Jamaica, as early as 1911, when he was but twenty-two years -of age, his _Constab Ballads_, in Negro dialect, was published. Even in -so broken a tongue this book revealed a poet--on the constabulary force -of Jamaica. In 1920 his first book of poems in literary English, _Spring -in New Hamp-Shire_, came out in England, with a _Preface_ by Mr. I. A. -Richards, of Cambridge, England. Meanwhile, shortly after the -publication of his first book, he had come to the United States. - -Here he has worked at various occupations, has taken courses in -Agriculture and English in the Kansas State College, and has thus become -acquainted with life in the States. He is now on the editorial staff of -the _Liberator_, New York. There has been no poet of his race who has -more poignantly felt and more artistically expressed the life of the -American Negro. His poetry is a most noteworthy contribution to -literature. From _Spring in New Hampshire_ I am privileged to take a -number of poems which will follow without comment: - -SPRING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE - - Too green the springing April grass, - Too blue the silver-speckled sky, - For me to linger here, alas, - While happy winds go laughing by, - Wasting the golden hours indoors, - Washing windows and scrubbing floors. - - Too wonderful the April night, - Too faintly sweet the first May flowers, - The stars too gloriously bright, - For me to spend the evening hours, - When fields are fresh and streams are leaping, - Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping. - -THE LYNCHING - - His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven. - His Father, by the cruelest way of pain, - Had bidden him to his bosom once again; - The awful sin remained still unforgiven: - All night a bright and solitary star - (Perchance the one that ever guided him, - Yet gave him up at last to Fate’s wild whim) - Hung pitifully o’er the swinging char. - Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view - The ghastly body swaying in the sun: - The women thronged to look, but never a one - Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue, - And little lads, lynchers that were to be, - Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee. - -THE HARLEM DANCER - - Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes - And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; - Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes - Blown by black players upon a picnic day. - She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, - The light gauze hanging loose about her form; - To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm - Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. - Upon her swarthy neck, black, shiny curls - Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise, - The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, - Devoured her with eager, passionate gaze: - But, looking at her falsely-smiling face, - I knew her self was not in that strange place. - -IN BONDAGE - - I would be wandering in distant fields - Where man, and bird, and beast live leisurely, - And the old earth is kind and ever yields - Her goodly gifts to all her children free; - Where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding, - And boys and girls have time and space for play - Before they come to years of understanding,-- - Somewhere I would be singing, far away; - For life is greater than the thousand wars - Men wage for it in their insatiate lust, - And will remain like the eternal stars - When all that is to-day is ashes and dust: - But I am bound with you in your mean graves, - Oh, black men, simple slaves of ruthless slaves. - -Distinction of idea and phrase inheres in these poems. In them the Negro -is esthetically conceived, and interpreted with vision. This is art -working as it should. Mr. McKay has passion and the control of it to the -ends of art. He has the poet’s insight, the poet’s understanding. - -Perhaps the most arresting poem in this list, and the one most surely -attesting the genius of the writer, is _The Harlem Dancer_. It is an -achievement in portrayal sufficient by itself to establish a poetic -reputation. The divination that penetrates to the secret purity of soul, -or nobleness of character, through denying appearances--how rare is the -faculty, and how necessary! Elsewhere I give a poem from a Negro woman -which evinces the same divine gift in the author, exhibited in a poem -no less original and no less deeply impressive--Mrs. Spencer’s _At the -Carnival_. Here I will companion _The Harlem Dancer_ with one from Mr. -Dandridge, for the comparison will deepen the effect of each: - -ZALKA PEETRUZA - -(_Who Was Christened Lucy Jane_) - - She danced, near nude, to tom-tom beat, - With swaying arms and flying feet, - ’Mid swirling spangles, gauze and lace, - Her all was dancing--save her face. - - A conscience, dumb to brooding fears, - Companioned hearing deaf to cheers; - A body, marshalled by the will, - Kept dancing while a heart stood still: - - And eyes obsessed with vacant stare - Looked over heads to empty air, - As though they sought to find therein - Redemption for a maiden sin. - - ’Twas thus, amid force-driven grace, - We found the lost look on her face; - And then, to us, did it occur - That, though we saw--we saw not her. - -Returning to Mr. McKay, we may assert that his new volume of verse, -_Harlem Shadows_, confirms and enhances the estimate of him we have -expressed. - - -_X. Leslie Pinckney Hill_ - -[Illustration: LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL] - -Bearing the diploma of the Lyric Muse, Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, -schoolmaster of Cheyney, Pennsylvania, and authentic singer, is one of -the newest arrivals on the slopes of Parnassus. A first glance tells -that he is an agile climber, sinewy, easy of movement, light of step, -with both grace and strength. Every indication in form and motion is for -some point far up toward the summit. Youthful he is, ambitious, plainly, -and, in spite of a burden, buoyant. “Climber,” I said. I will drop the -figure. Poets were never pedestrians. Mr. Hill comes not afoot. If not -on the wings of Pegasus, yet on wings he comes--_the wings of -oppression_. Sad wings! yet it must be remarked that it is commonly on -such wings that poets of whatever race and time rise. And Mr. Hill’s -race knows no other wings. On the wings of oppression the Negro poet and -the Negro people are rising toward the summits of Parnassus, Pisgah, and -other peaks. This they know, too, and of it they are justly proud. - -In his _Foreword_ Mr. Hill thus states the case of his people, and, by -implication, of himself: “Nothing in the life of the nation has seemed -to me more significant than that dark civilization which the colored man -has built up in the midst of a white society organized against it. The -Negro has been driven under all the burdens of oppression, both material -and spiritual, to the brink of desperation, but he has always been saved -by his philosophy of life. He has advanced against all opposition by a -certain elevation of his spirit. He has been made strong in tribulation. -He has constrained oppression to give him wings.” - -The significant thing about these wings, in a critical view, is that -they fulfill the proper function of wings--bear aloft and sustain in -flight through the azure depths. Mr. Hill’s wings do bear aloft and -sustain: if not always, nor even ever, into the very empyrean of poetry -yet invariably, seventy times, into the ampler air. Like all his race, -he has suffered much; and, like all his race still, he has gathered -wisdom from sorrow. As a true poet should have, he has philosophy, also -vision and imagination--vision for himself and his people, imagination -that sees facts in terms of beauty and presents truths with vital -imagery. Add thereto craftsmanship acquired in the best traditions of -English poetry and you have Hill the poet. - -The merit of his book cannot be shown by lines and stanzas. As ever with -true art, the merit lies in the whole effect of complete poems. Still, -we may here first detach from this and that poem a stanza or two, -despite the wrong to art. The first and fourth stanzas of the title-poem -will indicate Mr. Hill’s technique and philosophy: - - I have a song that few will sing - In honor of all suffering, - A song to which my heart can bring - The homage of believing-- - A song the heavy-laden hears - Above the clamor of his fears, - While still he walks with blinding tears, - And drains the cup of grieving. - - * * * * * - - So long as life is steeped in wrong, - And nations cry: “How long, how long!” - I look not to the wise and strong - For peace and self-possession; - But right will rise, and mercy shine, - And justice lift her conquering sign - Where lowly people starve and pine - Beneath a world oppression. - -The character and temper of the Negro in those gentler aspects which -make such an appeal to the heart are revealed in the following sonnet: - -MATER DOLOROSA - - O mother, there are moments when I know - God’s presence to the full. The city street - May wrap me in the tumult and the heat - Of futile striving; bitter winds may blow - With winter-wilting freeze of hail and snow, - And all my hopes lie shattered in defeat; - But in my heart the springtime blossoms sweet, - And heaven seems very near the way I go. - - These moments are the angels of that prayer - Which thou hast breathed for many a troubled year - With bended knee and swarthy-streaming face-- - “Uphold him, Father, with a double care: - He is but mortal, yet his days must bear - The world cross, and the burden of his race.” - -If these poems, taken collectively, do not declare “what is on the -Negro’s mind” they yet truly reveal, to the reflecting person, what has -sunk deep into his heart. They are therefore a message to America, a -protest, an appeal, and a warning. They will penetrate, I predict, -through breast-armor of _aes triplex_ into the hearts of those whom -sermons and editorials fail to touch in the springs of action. Such is -the virtue of music wed to persuasive words. In strong lines of soaring -blank verse, in which Mr. Hill is particularly capable, he makes a -direct appeal to America in behalf of his people, in a poem entitled -Armageddon: - - Because ye schooled them in the arts of life, - And gave to them your God, and poured your blood - Into their veins to make them what they are, - They shall not fail you in the hour of need. - They own in them enough of you to feel - All that has made you masters in your time-- - Dear art and riches, unremitting toil, - Proud types of beauty, an unbounded will - To triumph, wondrous science and old law-- - These have they learned to covet and to share. - - But deeper in them still is something steeled - To hot abhorrence and unmeasured dread - Of your undaunted sins against the light-- - Red sins of lust, of envy and of hate, - Of guilty gain extorted from the weak, - Of brotherhood traduced, and God denied. - All this have they beheld without revolt, - And borne the brunt in agonizing prayer. - - For other strains of blood that flow from times - Older than Egypt, whence the dark man gave - The rudiments of learning to all lands, - Have been a strong constraint. And they have dreamed - Of a peculiar mission under heaven, - And felt the force of unexampled gifts - That make for them a rare inheritance-- - The gift of cheerful confidence in man, - The gift of calm endurance, solacing - An infinite capacity for pain, - The gift of an unfeigned humility, - Blinding the eyes of strident arrogance - And bigot pride to that philosophy - And that far-glancing wisdom which it veils, - Of joy in beauty, hardihood in toil, - Of hope in tribulation, and of wide - Adaptive power without a parallel - In chronicles of men. - -A sonnet entitled _To a Caged Canary in a Negro Restaurant_ will present -the poet’s people with the persuasiveness of pathos as the foregoing -poem with the persuasiveness of reason: - - Thou little golden bird of happy song! - A cage cannot restrain the rapturous joy - Which thou dost shed abroad. Thou dost employ - Thy bondage for high uses. Grievous wrong - Is thine; yet in thy heart glows full and strong - The tropic sun, though far beyond thy flight, - And though thou flutterest there by day and night - Above the clamor of a dusky throng. - So let my will, albeit hedged about - By creed and caste, feed on the light within; - So let my song sing through the bars of doubt - With light and healing where despair has been; - So let my people bide their time and place, - A hindered but a sunny-hearted race. - -It would be an injustice to this poet did I convey the idea that his -seventy-odd poems are exclusively occupied with race wrongs and -oppression. Not a few of them bear no stamp of an oppressed or afflicted -spirit, though of sorrow they may have been nurtured. - -A lyric of pure loveliness is the following, entitled - -TO A NOBLY-GIFTED SINGER - - All the pleasance of her face - Telleth of an inward grace; - In her dark eyes I have seen - Sorrows of the Nazarene; - In the proud and perfect mould - Of her body I behold, - Rounded in a single view, - The good, the beautiful, the true; - And when her spirit goes up-winging - On sweet airs of artless singing, - Surely the heavenly spheres rejoice - In union with a kindred voice. - -Schoolmaster I said Mr. Hill was. To represent his didactic quality, not -his purer lyrical note, nor yet his narrative beauty, I choose the -following piece: - - -SELF-DETERMINATION - -_The Philosophy of the American Negro_ - - Four things we will not do, in spite of all - That demons plot for our decline and fall; - We bring four benedictions which the meek - Unto the proud are privileged to speak, - Four gifts by which amidst all stern-browed races - We move with kindly hearts and shining faces. - - _We will not hate._ Law, custom, creed and caste, - All notwithstanding, here we hold us fast. - Down through the years the mighty ships of state - Have all been broken on the rocks of hate. - - _We will not cease to laugh and multiply._ - We slough off trouble, and refuse to die. - The Indian stood unyielding, stark and grim; - We saw him perish, and we learned of him - To mix a grain of philosophic mirth - With all the crass injustices of earth. - - _We will not use the ancient carnal tools._ - These never won, yet centuries of schools, - Of priests, and all the work of brush and pen - Have not availed to win the wisest men - From futile faith in battleship and shell: - We see them fall, and mark that folly well. - - _We will not waver in our loyalty._ - No strange voice reaches us across the sea; - No crime at home shall stir us from this soil. - Ours is the guerdon, ours the blight of toil, - But raised above it by a faith sublime - We choose to suffer _here_ and bide our time. - - And if we hold to this, we dream some day - Our countrymen will follow in our way. - -But though teacher Leslie Pinckney Hill is singer too. And though he has -a message for America he also has music. His powers are rich, varied, -cultured, and developing. His second book will be better than his -excellent first. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE HEART OF NEGRO WOMANHOOD - - -_I. Miss Eva A. Jessye_ - -[Illustration: MISS EVA A. JESSYE] - -From newspapers I have clipt several poems by Miss Jessye that exhibit a -nature touched to the finer things of the world and of life. She has -fancy, and skill in expression. I concluded section I of chapter II with -a poem of hers, and I will here give two more. The first, in a lighter -vein, betrays the human nature of a school-teacher in the midst of her -vexations while she tries to appear above the reach of common desires. - -SPRING WITH THE TEACHER - - ’Tis now the time of silver moon, - Of swelling bud and fancies free - As western winds, but then, ah me! - May cannot come too soon; - The rover calls in every child, - And sets his pulses running wild! - - “Do stop that noise and take your seat! - Joe, learn to study quietly! - Why girl, it surely has me beat - How you forget geography! - Brazil’s in Spain? Here, close that book! - What caused the Civil War, you say?-- - Suzanna says somebody took - Her beads; return them right away! - - “Now boy, I told you once before - To put that story book away! - I’ll call the roll: Beatrice Moore, - Why were you absent yesterday? - Why yes, I heard that mocking bird. - Lee Arthur, straighten up your face! - Well, surely, class, you never heard - Of adverbs having tense and case! - - “Now, James, explain the term ‘per cent,’ - My, my, ’tis surely not forgot! - If it were fun or devilment - You’d know it all, sir, like as not! - Who put that bent pin in my chair? - No one of course--bent pins can walk! - I’ll tell you though, had I sat there - I’d make these straps and switches talk. - - “A picnic on for Saturday? - (I wish that I were going, too!) - Oh, no! I couldn’t get away, - I have so many things to do. - Well, there’s the bell! Goodbye, goodbye, - And be good children, don’t forget.”-- - Well, thank the Lord they’re gone, but I - Can hear their joyous laughter yet. - - ’Tis now the time of silver moon, - Of swelling bud and fancies free - As western winds, but then, ah me! - May cannot come too soon! - -Though the moral motive is rarely consistent with the artistic, yet in -the next poem of Miss Jessye’s I shall give there is a perfect -reconciliation. Original no doubt is the idea of this poem, but Sappho, -it seems to me, as one of her fragments bears witness, had meditated -upon the very same idea twenty-five centuries ago. - -TO A ROSEBUD - - O dainty bud, I hold thee in my hand-- - A castaway, a dead, a lifeless thing, - A few days since I saw thee, wet with dew, - A bud of promise to thy parent cling, - Now thou art crushed yet lovely as before, - The adverse winds but waft thy fragrance more. - - How small, how frail! I tread thee underfoot - And crush thy petals in the reeking ground: - Perchance some one in pity for thy state - Will pick thee up in reverence profound-- - Lo, thou art pure with virtue more intense, - Thy perfume grows from earthly detriments. - - Why do we grieve? Let each affliction bear - A greater beauty springing from the sod, - May sweetness well as incense from the urn, - Which, rising high, enshrouds the throne of God. - Envoy of Hope, this lesson I disclose-- - “Be Ever Sweet,” thou humble, fragrant rose! - -Miss Jessye, now a teacher of the piano in Muskogee, Oklahoma, was born -in Kansas and was graduated from Western University. She has taken -prizes in oratory, poetry, and essay-writing. Yet in her early twenties, -she has a volume of verse ready for publication. - - -_II. Mrs. J. W. Hammond_ - -[Illustration: MRS. J. W. HAMMOND] - -Self-taught, and disclaiming knowledge of books, Mrs. Hammond of Omaha, -Nebraska, contributes to _The Monitor_ of that city verses of musical -cadences and gentle beauty. Her response to the scenes and objects of -nature is that of a poetic mind. The spirit of joy sings through her -verses. As a representative poem the following may be accepted: - -THE OPTIMIST - - Who would have the sky any color but blue, - Or the grass any color but green? - Or the flowers that bloom the summer through - Of other color or sheen? - - How the sunshine gladdens the human heart-- - How the sound of the falling rain - Will cause the tender tears to start, - And free the soul from pain. - - Oh, this old world is a great old place! - And I love each season’s change, - The river, the brook of purling grace, - The valley, the mountain range. - - And when I am called to quit this life, - My feet will not spurn the sod, - Though I leave this world with its beauty rife,-- - There’s a glorious one with God! - -One other poem of Mrs. Hammond’s I will give that is beautiful alike in -feeling and treatment. - -TO MY NEIGHBOR BOY - - When sweet Aurora lifts her veil, - And floods the world with rosy light, - When morning stars, grown dim and pale, - Proclaim the passing of the night-- - With waking bird and opening flower, - I greet with joy the new-born day-- - For oft at this exquisite hour, - I hear a strange new roundelay. - No syncopating “jazz” or “blues,” - Insults my eager listening ear, - But softly as the falling dews, - The strains come stealing sweet and clear. - With lilting grace they rise above - The early traffic’s sordid din-- - My neighbor boy is making love - To his beloved violin. - - Sometimes I catch a quivering note-- - An over-burdened wordless cry. - I say: “Those are the lines he wrote - The day he told some one goodbye.” - But when I hear a joyous strain - Of melody serene and clear, - I smile and say: “All’s well again-- - The little maiden must be near!” - But best of all I love the mood - That prompts a soft sweet minor key. - My longing soul forgets to brood, - While drinking in the melody. - My restless spirit will not rove, - Nor lose its faith in God and men, - The while my neighbor boy makes love - To his beloved violin. - - -_III. Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson_ - -A sonnet has already been given from Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson to which I think -Mrs. Browning or Christina Rossetti might have appended her signature -without detriment to her fame. It is one of a series entitled _A Dream -Sequence_, the rest of the sequence being as yet unpublished. Instead -of pillaging this sequence, marring the effect of the individual member -so dislocated, I will take from her compilation, _The Dunbar -Speaker_,[3] so named for her first husband, the poet, two of her -original poems. The first is a war poem, doubtless, but the occasion is -immaterial. The spirit of rebellion against confinement to the petty -thing while the something big calls afar might be evoked into play by -any of a hundred situations. - -[Illustration: ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON] - -I SIT AND SEW - - I sit and sew--a useless task it seems, - My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams-- - The panoply of war, the martial tread of men, - Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken - Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death, - Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath-- - But--I must sit and sew. - - I sit and sew--my heart aches with desire-- - That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire - On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things - Once men. My soul in pity flings - Appealing cries, yearning only to go - There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe-- - But--I must sit and sew. - - The little useless seam, the idle patch; - Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch, - When there they lie in sodden mud and rain, - Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain? - You need me, Christ! It is no roseate dream - That beckons me--this pretty futile seam, - It stifles me--God, must I sit and sew? - -The second poem I shall give is also not unrelated to the recent World -War, and to all war: the lights alluded to, shining across and down the -Delaware for miles, are the lights of the DuPont powder mills. It is a -poem of fine symmetry, highly poetic diction, and great allusive -meaning--a poem that will bear and repay many readings, never growing -less beautiful. - -THE LIGHTS AT CARNEY’S POINT - - O white little lights at Carney’s Point, - You shine so clear o’er the Delaware; - When the moon rides high in the silver sky, - Then you gleam, white gems on the Delaware. - Diamond circlet on a full white throat, - You laugh your rays on a questing boat; - Is it peace you dream in your flashing gleam, - O’er the quiet flow of the Delaware? - - And the lights grew dim at the water’s brim, - For the smoke of the mills shredded slow between; - And the smoke was red, as is new bloodshed, - And the lights went lurid ’neath the livid screen. - - O red little lights at Carney’s Point, - You glower so grim o’er the Delaware; - When the moon hides low sombrous clouds below, - Then you glow like coals o’er the Delaware. - Blood red rubies on a throat of fire, - You flash through the dusk of a funeral pyre; - Are there hearth fires red whom you fear and dread - O’er the turgid flow of the Delaware? - - And the lights gleamed gold o’er the river cold, - For the murk of the furnace shed a copper veil; - And the veil was grim at the great cloud’s brim, - And the lights went molten, now hot, now pale. - - O gold little lights at Carney’s Point, - You gleam so proud o’er the Delaware; - When the moon grows wan in the eastering dawn, - Then you sparkle gold points o’er the Delaware. - Aureate filigree on a Crœsus’ brow, - You hasten the dawn on a gray ship’s prow. - Light you streams of gold in the grim ship’s hold - O’er the sullen flow of the Delaware? - - And the lights went gray in the ash of day, - For a quiet Aurora brought a halcyon balm; - And the sun laughed high in the infinite sky, - And the lights were forgot in the sweet, sane calm. - -Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson has not applied herself to poetry as she has to prose -fiction. As a short-story writer she has special distinction. - - -_IV. Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson_ - -[Illustration: MRS. G. D. JOHNSON] - -Exquisite artistry in verse, with infallible poetic content, is -exhibited in Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson’s _The Heart of a Woman_. It -is also the saddest book produced by her race. Perfect lyrical notes, -the most poignant pathos--that is an exact description of it. Triple -bronze cannot armor any breast successfully against its appeal. For the -heart that speaks here is a heart that has known its garden of sorrows, -its Gethsemane. This is the harvest of her sorrows--dreams and songs, of -which she comments: - - The dreams of the dreamer - Are life-drops that pass - The break in the heart - To the Soul’s hour-glass. - - The songs of the singer - Are tones that repeat - The cry of the heart - Till it ceases to beat. - -Neither in memory nor in dreams is there a refuge for the life-wounded -heart of this woman: - - What need have I for memory, - When not a single flower - Has bloomed within life’s desert - For me, one little hour? - - What need have I for memory, - Whose burning eyes have met - The corse of unborn happiness - Winding the trail regret? - -And thus of her dreams, on the last page of her book: - - I am folding up my little dreams - Within my heart to-night, - And praying I may soon forget - The torture of their sight. - -What are the experiences and what the conditions of life--what must they -have been--which have had the tragic power to make a soul “try to forget -it has dreamed of stars?” The world little kens what hearts in it are -breaking, and why. To the grave the secret goes with the many, one in a -million betrays it in a cry. But not here is it betrayed: - -SMOTHERED FIRES - - A woman with a burning flame - Deep covered through the years - With ashes--ah! she hid it deep, - And smothered it with tears. - - Sometimes a baleful light would rise - From out the dusky bed, - And then the woman hushed it quick - To slumber on, as dead. - - At last the weary war was done, - The tapers were alight, - And with a sigh of victory - She breathed a soft--goodnight! - -Not without hurt to itself may the oyster produce its pearl. These poems -from the heart of a woman remind me of nothing so much as a string of -pearls. Each one is witness to a bruise or gash to the spirit. The lyric -cry has not been more piercing in anything written on American soil, -piercing all the more for the perfect restraint, the sure artistry. It -was a heart surcharged with sorrow in which these pearls of poesy took -shape from secret wounds. The heart of one woman speaks in them for -thousands in America, else inarticulate. “We weep,” says the African -proverb, “we weep in our hearts like the tortoise.” Without one word or -hint of race in all the book there is yet between its covers the -unwritten, unwritable tragedy of that borderland race which knows not -where it belongs in the world, a truly homeless race in soul. A sadder -book could hardly be. - -Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and received -her academic education in Atlanta University and a musical education at -Oberlin. She now lives in Washington, D. C. She is at the beginning of -her career as an author. Two other books of lyrics, under the titles of -_An Autumn Love Cycle_, and _Bronze_,[4] she has in preparation for the -press at this time. Some of their contents have already appeared in -magazines. These two new volumes will make an advance in power and in -richness of content beyond _The Heart of a Woman_. They will also -provide the key to the tragic mystery concealed in that book. A poem -that is to appear in _Bronze_ will be given in a later chapter. I will -here give another. Both have already been published in magazines. - -THE OCTOROON - - One drop of midnight in the dawn of life’s pulsating stream - Marks her an alien from her kind, a shade amid its gleam. - Forevermore her step she bends, insular, strange, apart-- - And none can read the riddle of her strangely warring heart. - - The stormy current of her blood beats like a mighty sea - Against the man-wrought iron bars of her captivity. - For refuge, succor, peace, and rest, she seeks that humble fold - Whose every breath is kindliness, whose hearts are purest gold. - - -_V. Miss Angelina W. Grimké_ - -[Illustration: MISS ANGELINA GRIMKÉ] - -Not less distinctive in quality than Mrs. Johnson’s, and not less -beautiful in artistry, are the brief lyrics of Miss Angelina W. Grimké, -also of the city of Washington. If hers should be called imagist poetry -or no I cannot say, but I am certain that more vivid imaging of objects -has not been done in verse by any contemporary. This, too, in stanzas -that suggest in their perfection of form the work of the old lapidaries. -Nor is there but a surface or formal beauty. There is passion, there is -beauty of idea, the soul of lyric poetry is there as well as the form. I -am weighing well my words in giving this praise, and I know that not -one in the thousand of those who write good verse would deserve them. -But I ask the sceptical individual to re-read them after he has perused -the poems themselves. - -I will present several without interrupting comment: - -DAWN - - Grey trees, grey skies, and not a star; - Grey mist, grey hush; - And then, frail, exquisite, afar, - A hermit-thrush. - -A WINTER TWILIGHT - - A silence slipping around like death, - Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath; - One group of trees, lean, naked and cold, - Inking their crests ’gainst a sky green-gold; - One path that knows where the corn flowers were; - Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir; - And over it softly leaning down, - One star that I loved ere the fields went brown. - -THE PUPPET-PLAYER - - Sometimes it seems as though some puppet-player. - A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin. - Sits just beyond the border of our seeing, - Twitching the strings with slow, sardonic grin. - -THE WANT OF YOU - - A hint of gold where the moon will be; - Through the flocking clouds just a star or two; - Leaf sounds, soft and wet and hushed, - And oh! the crying want of you. - -EL BESO - - Twilight--and you, - Quiet--the stars; - Snare of the shine of your teeth, - Your provocative laughter, - The gloom of your hair; - Lure of you, eye and lip; - Yearning, yearning, - Languor, surrender; - Your mouth, - And madness, madness, - Tremulous, breathless, flaming, - The space of a sigh; - Then awakening--remembrance, - Pain, regret--your sobbing; - And again quiet--the stars, - Twilight--and you. - -AT THE SPRING DAWN - - I watched the dawn come, - Watched the spring dawn come. - And the red sun shouldered his way up - Through the grey, through the blue, - Through the lilac mists. - The quiet of it! The goodness of it! - And one bird awoke, sang, whirred - A blur of moving black against the sun, - Sang again--afar off. - And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun, - Stretched to my finger tips, - And I laughed. - Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love, - At the dawn, - At the spring dawn. - -TO KEEP THE MEMORY OF CHARLOTTE FORTEN GRIMKÉ - - Still are there wonders of the dark and day; - The muted shrilling of shy things at night, - So small beneath the stars and moon; - The peace, dream-frail, but perfect while the light - Lies softly on the leaves at noon. - These are, and these will be - Until Eternity; - But she who loved them well has gone away. - - Each dawn, while yet the east is veiled gray, - The birds about her window wake and sing; - And far away each day some lark - I know is singing where the grasses swing; - Some robin calls and calls at dark. - These are, and these will be - Until Eternity; - But she who loved them well has gone away. - - The wild flowers that she loved down green ways stray; - Her roses lift their wistful buds at dawn, - But not for eyes that loved them best; - Only her little pansies are all gone, - Some lying softly on her breast. - And flowers will bud and be - Until Eternity; - But she who loved them well has gone away. - - Where has she gone? And who is there to say? - But this we know: her gentle spirit moves - And is where beauty never wanes, - Perchance by other streams, ’mid other groves; - And to us here, ah! she remains - A lovely memory - Until Eternity. - She came, she loved, and then she went away. - -The subject of these beautiful memorial verses was not simply in feeling -but in expression also a poet herself. From “A June Song” written by her -I will take a stanza in evidence: - - How shall we crown her bright young head? - Crown it with roses, rare and red; - Crown it with roses, creamy white, - As the lotus bloom that sweetens the night. - Crown it with roses as pink as shell - In which the voices of ocean dwell. - And a fairer queen - Shall ne’er be seen - Than our lovely, laughing June. - - -_VI. Mrs. Anne Spencer_ - -Who can fathom to its depths the heart of womanhood? Under the -conditions of American - -[Illustration: MRS. ANNE SPENCER] - -life the Negro woman’s heart offers difficulties peculiar to itself. -These various writers--talented, cultured, with the keen sensibilities -of a specially sensitive people--have given us glimpses into some of the -depths, not all. A poet of the other sex, Mr. McKay, with that -divination which belongs to the poet, intimates in _The Harlem Dancer_, -quoted on page 128, that the index of the heart is not always in the -occupation or the face: - - But, looking at her falsely-smiling face, - I knew her self was not in that strange place. - -No, her self was free and too noble to be smirched by the “passionate -gaze of wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys.” It is a paradox that has puzzled -a recent white novelist. Cissie Dildine, in Mr. Stribling’s -_Birthright_, pilferer though she is, and sacrificer of her maidenhood, -yet does not lose caste among her people. They speak affectionately of -her and minister lovingly to her in jail, with no hint of reproach. It -is not other standards, as the novelist intimates, that we must apply, -but only right standards, in view of circumstances. - -I am able to give here a poem that may start in the reader’s mind a -fruitful train of reflections, tending toward profound ethical truth. -The writer, Mrs. Anne Spencer of Lynchburg, Virginia, in all of her work -that I have seen, has marked originality. Her style is independent, -unconventional, and highly compressed. The poem which follows will -fairly represent her work and at the same time open another avenue to -the secret chambers of the Negro woman’s heart: - -AT THE CARNIVAL - - Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving-Tank, - I desire a name for you, - Nice, as a right glove fits; - For you--who amid the malodorous - Mechanics of this unlovely thing, - Are darling of spirit and form. - I know you--a glance, and what you are - Sits-by-the-fire in my heart. - My Limousine-Lady knows you, or - Why does the slant-envy of her eye mark - Your straight air and radiant inclusive smile? - Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning. - The bull-necked man knows you--this first time - His itching flesh sees form divine and vibrant health, - And thinks not of his avocation. - I came incuriously-- - Set on no diversion save that my mind - Might safely nurse its brood of misdeeds - In the presence of a blind crowd. - The color of life was gray. - Everywhere the setting seemed right - For my mood! - Here the sausage and garlic booth - Sent unholy incense skyward; - There a quivering female-thing - Gestured assignations, and lied - To call it dancing; - There, too, were games of chance - With chances for none; - But oh! Girl-of-the-Tank, at last! - Gleaming Girl, how intimately pure and free - The gaze you send the crowd, - As though you know the dearth of beauty - In its sordid life. - We need you--my Limousine-Lady, - The bull-necked man, and I. - Seeing you here brave and water-clean, - Leaven for the heavy ones of earth, - I am swift to feel that what makes - The plodder glad is good; and - Whatever is good is God. - The wonder is that you are here; - I have seen the queer in queer places, - But never before a heaven-fed - Naiad of the Carnival-Tank! - Little Diver, Destiny for you, - Like as for me, is shod in silence; - Years may seep into your soul - The bacilli of the usual and the expedient; - I implore Neptune to claim his child to-day! - - -_VII. Miss Jessie Fauset_ - -[Illustration: MISS JESSIE REDMON FAUSET] - -By way of indicating the idealistic aspirations of the colored people I -gave at the end of Chapter I. J. Mord Allen’s poem _The Psalm of the -Uplift_. For the same purpose I will give here, at the end of this -chapter, a poem of the very present day from one of the most -accomplished young women of the Negro race. Besides its intrinsic merit -as a poem it has the further recommendation for a place in this chapter -that it celebrates a woman of the black race who was the very embodiment -of its noblest qualities--illiterate slave though she was. It is a -splendid testimonial to her people of this later day that Negro -literature is filled with tributes to Sojourner Truth. She was indeed a -wonderful woman, altogether worthy to be ranked with the noble heroines -of biblical story. From a Negro historian I take the following -restrained account of her:[5] - - Two Negroes, because of their unusual gifts, stood out with great - prominence in the agitation. These were Sojourner Truth and - Frederick Douglass. Sojourner Truth was born of slave parents about - 1798 in Ulster County, New York. She remembered vividly in later - years the cold, wet cellar-room in which slept the slaves of the - family to which she belonged, and where she was taught by her - mother to repeat the Lord’s Prayer and to trust in God at all - times. When in the course of gradual emancipation in New York she - became legally free in 1827, her master refused to comply with the - law. She left, but was pursued and found. Rather than have her go - back, a friend paid for her services for the rest of the year. Then - came an evening when, searching for one of her children that had - been stolen and sold, she found herself a homeless wanderer. A - Quaker family gave her lodging for the night. Subsequently she went - to New York City, joined a Methodist Church, and worked hard to - improve her condition. Later, having decided to leave New York for - a lecturing tour through the East, she made a small bundle of her - belongings and informed a friend that her name was no longer - Isabella but Sojourner. She went on her way, lecturing to people - where she found them assembled and being entertained in many - aristocratic homes. She was entirely untaught in the schools, but - she was witty, original, and always suggestive. By her tact and her - gift of song she kept down ridicule, and by her fervor and faith - she won many friends for the anti-slavery cause. As to her name she - said: “And the Lord gave me Sojourner because I was to travel up - an’ down the land showin’ the people their sins an’ bein’ a sign - unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, ’cause - everybody else had two names, an’ the Lord gave me Truth, because I - was to declare the truth to the people.” - -The poem follows, with the author’s note on the saying of Sojourner -Truth which occasioned it: - -ORIFLAMME - - I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old mammy - would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at the stars and - groan, and I would say, ‘Mammy, what makes you groan so?’ And she - would say, ‘I am groaning to think of my poor children; they do not - know where I be and I don’t know where they be. I look up at the - stars and they look up at the stars!’--Sojourner Truth. - - I think I see her sitting bowed and black, - Stricken and seared with slavery’s mortal scars, - Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet - Still looking at the stars. - - Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons, - Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars, - Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set, - Still visioning the stars! - -“Still visioning the stars”--that is the idealism of the Negro. The soul -of Sojourner Truth goes marching on, star-led. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -AD ASTRA PER ASPERA - - -I. PER ASPERA - - -_I. Edward Smythe Jones_ - -[Illustration: EDWARD SMYTHE JONES] - -It has not frequently happened in these times that a poet has dated a -poem from a prison cell, or dedicated a book of poems to the judge of a -police court. Mr. Edward Smythe Jones, however, has done this, and there -is an interesting story by way of explanation. From the poem alluded to -it seems that Mr. Jones in his over-mastering desire to drink at the -Harvard fountain of learning tramped out of the Southland up to -Cambridge. Arriving travel-worn, friendless, moneyless, hungry, he was -preparing to bivouac on the Harvard campus his first night in the -University city, when, being misunderstood, and not believed, he was -apprehended as a vagabond and thrown into jail. A poem, however, the -poem which tells this story, delivered him. The judge was convinced by -it, kindly entreated the prisoner, and set him free to return to the -academic shades. _Ad astra per aspera._ - -It was in “Cell No. 40, East Cambridge Jail, Cambridge, Massachusetts, -July 26, 1910,” that the unlucky bard committed to verse this story, -transmuting harsh experience to the joy of artistic production. The last -half of his version runs as follows: - - As soon as locked within the jail, - Deep in a ghastly cell, - Methought I heard the bitter wail - Of all the fiends of hell! - “O God, to Thee I humbly pray - No treacherous prison snare - Shall close my soul within for aye - From dear old Harvard Square.” - - Just then I saw an holy Sprite - Shed all her radiant beams, - And round her shone the source of light - Of all the poets’ dreams! - I plied my pen in sober use, - And spent each moment spare - In sweet communion with the Muse - I met in Harvard Square! - - I cried: “Fair Goddess, hear my tale - Of sorrow, grief and pain.” - That made her face an ashen pale, - But soon it glowed again! - “They placed me here; and this my crime, - Writ on their pages fair;-- - ‘He left his sunny native clime, - And came to Harvard Square!’” - - “Weep not, my son, thy way is hard, - Thy weary journey long-- - But thus I choose my favorite bard - To sing my sweetest song. - I’ll strike the key-note of my art - And guide with tend’rest care, - And breathe a song into thy heart - To honor Harvard Square. - - “I called old Homer long ago, - And made him beg his bread - Through seven cities, ye all know, - His body fought for, dead. - Spurn not oppression’s blighting sting, - Nor scorn thy lowly fare; - By them I’ll teach thy soul to sing - The songs of Harvard Square. - - “I placed great Dante in exile, - And Byron had his turns; - Then Keats and Shelley smote the while, - And my immortal Burns! - But thee I’ll build a sacred shrine, - A store of all my ware; - By them I’ll teach thy soul to sing - ‘A place in Harvard Square.’ - - “To some a store of mystic lore, - To some to shine a star: - The first I gave to Allan Poe, - The last to Paul Dunbar. - Since thou hast waited patient, long, - Now by my throne I swear - To give to thee my sweetest song - To sing in Harvard Square.” - - And when she gave her parting kiss - And bade a long farewell, - I sat serene in perfect bliss - As she forsook my cell. - Upon the altar-fire she poured - Some incense very rare; - Its fragrance sweet my soul assured - I’d enter Harvard Square. - - Reclining on my couch, I slept - A sleep sweet and profound; - O’er me the blessed angels kept - Their vigil close around. - With dawning’s smile, my fondest hope - Shone radiant and fair: - The Justice cut each chain and rope - ’Tween me and Harvard Square! - -Of all the Negro poets whose writings I have perused, Edward Smythe -Jones is the most difficult to estimate with certainty. There is an -eloquence and luxuriance of language and imagery in his stanzas which -perplexes the critic and yet persuades him to repeated readings. The -result, however, fails to become clear. If, with his copiousness, the -reserve of disciplined art ever becomes his, and his critical faculty is -trained to match his creative, then poetry of noteworthy merit may be -expected from him. His deeply religious bent, his aspiration after the -best things of the mind, his ambition to treat lofty themes, augur well -for him. - -Mr. Jones’s two best poems, _The Sylvan Cabin: A Centenary Ode on the -Birth of Abraham Lincoln_ and _An Ode to Ethiopia: to the Aspiring Negro -Youth_, are too long for insertion here. I will give a shorter patriotic -ode, not included in his book, but written, I believe, during the World -War: - -FLAG OF THE FREE - - Flag of the free, our sable sires - First bore thee long ago - Into hot battles’ hell-lit fires, - Against the fiercest foe. - And when he shook his shaggy mien, - And made the death-knell ring, - Brave Attucks fell upon the Green, - Thy stripes first crimsoning. - - Thy might and majesty we hurl, - Against the bolts of Mars; - And from thy ample folds unfurl - Thy field of flaming stars! - Fond hope to nations in distress, - Thy starry gleam shall give; - The stricken in the wilderness - Shall look to thee and live. - - What matter if where Boreas roars, - Or where sweet Zephyr smiles? - What matter if where eagle soars, - Or in the sunlit isles? - Thy flowing crimson stripes shall wave - Above the bluish brine, - Emblazoned ensign of the brave, - And Liberty enshrine! - - Flag of the Free, still float on high - Through every age to come; - Bright beacon of the azure sky, - True light of Freedom’s dome. - Till nations all shall cease to grope - In vain for liberty, - Oh, shine, last lingering star of hope - Of all humanity! - -Is there, in all our American poetry, a more eloquent apostrophe to our -flag than that, not excepting even Joseph Rodman Drake’s? Perhaps the -allusion to Attucks in the first stanza will require a note for the -white reader. Every colored school-child, however, knows that Crispus -Attucks was a brave and stalwart Negro, who, in the van of the patriots -of Boston that resisted the British soldiers in the so-called “Boston -Massacre,” March 5, 1770, fell with two British bullets in his breast, -among the first martyrs for independence: - - Thus Attucks brave, without a moment’s pause, - Full bared his breast in Freedom’s holy cause, - First fell and tore the code of Tyranny’s cruel laws-- - -so writes of him this same poet in his _Ode to Ethiopia_. - - -_II. Raymond Garfield Dandridge_ - -Twelve years ago a young house-decorator in Cincinnati was stricken down -with partial paralysis, since which time he has been bedfast and all but -helpless. On this bed of distress he learned what resources were within -himself, powers that in health he knew not of. The fountain of poetry -sprang up in what threatened to be a desert life.--The artist-nature -within manifested itself in a new realm, the realm of words set to -tuneful measures. This artisan, turned by affliction into a poet, is -Raymond Garfield Dandridge. Again, _ad astra per aspera_. - -[Illustration: RAYMOND G. DANDRIDGE] - -It is not great poetry that Dandridge is giving to the world, but it is -poetry. His musings shaped into rhyme reach the heart. They have -sweetness and light--“the two most precious things in the world.” All -the art he has acquired, untaught, from his reading and unaided -thinking. Naturally one would not expect that art to be flawless. His -initial poem, while not literally a self-description, will serve to -introduce this adopted son of the lyric Muse: - -THE POET - - The poet sits and dreams and dreams; - He scans his verse; he probes his themes. - - Then turns to stretch or stir about, - Lest, like his thoughts, his strength give out. - - Then off to bed, for he must rise - And cord some wood, or tamp some ties, - - Or break a field of fertile soil, - Or do some other manual toil. - - He dare not live by wage of pen, - Most poorly paid of poor paid men, - - With shoes o’er-run, and threadbare clothes,-- - And editors among the foes - - Who mock his song, deny him bread, - Then sing his praise when he is dead. - -A secret consolation is intimated in the following lines: - -TO-- - - Though many are the dreams I dream, - They’re born within a single theme. - The same kind voice I ever hear, - Instilling faith, upbraiding fear: - The same consoling smile appears - To snuff my sighs and dry my tears: - And fondest heart, of purest gold, - Is hers whose name I here withhold, - And pray naught ever change my theme, - Or wake me from my dream. - -Reflections upon the deeper meanings of life and death are inevitable to -one situated as Mr. Dandridge is, provided he is given to serious -reflections at all. And the thoughts of such a person are apt to have -value for their sincerity. Two brief meditations in rhyme, as we may -call them, will represent his thinking on such themes: - -TIME TO DIE - - Black Brother, think you life so sweet - That you would live at any price? - Does mere existence balance with - The weight of your great sacrifice? - Or, can it be you fear the grave - Enough to live and die a slave? - O, Brother! be it better said, - When you are gone and tears are shed, - That your death was the stepping stone - Your children’s children cross’d upon. - Men have died that men might live: - Look every foeman in the eye! - If necessary, your life give - For something, ere in vain you die. - -ETERNITY - - Vast realm beyond the gate of death, - Where craven scavengers and kings, - Alike, with passing final breath, - Relinquish claim to earthly things: - - Endless, unexplored expanse, - Where souls, bereft of mortal clay, - Wander at will, in peace, perchance-- - Perchance in strife, who dare would say? - -Even in the confinement to which his affliction has subjected him, Mr. -Dandridge has felt the strong pulse-throbs of his people’s new kindled -aspirations. The strength of the soul may indeed increase with the -weakness of the body. These lines are surely not wanting in the passion -without which “facts” are cold: - -FACTS - - Triumphant Sable Heroes homeward turning, - Arrayed in medals bright, and half-healed scars, - Have service, life, and limb been given earning - Trophies issued at the hand of Mars? - - If your sole gain has been these “marks of battle,” - If valiant deeds insure no greater claim, - If you are still to be the herder’s cattle, - Then ill spilt blood fell short of Freedom’s aim. - - Democracy means more than empty letters, - And Liberty far more than partly free; - Yet, both are void as long as men in fetters - Are at eclipse with Opportunity. - - -_III. George Marion McClellan_ - -[Illustration: GEORGE MARION MCCLELLAN] - -Aptly has Mr. McClellan entitled his book of poems _The Path of Dreams_. -A dreamer is he and the home of his spirit is dreamland: - - Sweet-scented winds move inward from the shore, - Blythe is the air of June with silken gleams, - My roving fancy treads at will once more - The golden path of dreams. - -And that path leads the poet ever back to the golden days of his youth, -when Southern suns and Southern moons steeped his very being in dreams -and Southern birds gave him their melodies and Southern mountains lifted -his soul heavenward. A wanderer upon the earth he appears to have been, -and as all wanderers’ hearts turn back to some loved region or spot so -his to Dixie. Seldom has the longing for distant, remembered scenes, for -spring’s returning and for summer’s glow, been more sweetly expressed in -rhyme than in the various poems of _The Path of Dreams_. And yet, -sweeter songs than those are locked up in his breast, not to be sung: - - The summer sweetness fills my heart with songs - I cannot sing, with loves I cannot speak. - -When harsh necessity imprisons him in the city he sighs: - - I think the sight of fields and shady lanes - Would ease my heart of pains. - -But what contradictions poets have ever found in their experiences! The -ministrants of joy but wring the cry of pain from the yearning heart. -Lovely May is harder to endure, in exile, than gloomy December. The -city’s discordant cries may be endured, bringing neither grief nor joy, -while a bird’s carol may be exquisite torture: - - The woodlark’s tender warbling lay, - Which flows with melting art, - Is but a trembling song of love - That serves to break my heart. - -Musing on whatever scene, the poet’s thoughts are tinged with that -sadness which to every sensitive nature has a sweetness in it: - - The sun went down in beauty, - While I stood musing alone, - Stood watching the rushing river - And heard its restless moan; - Longings, vague, intenable, - So far from speech apart, - Like the endless rush of the river, - Went surging through my heart. - -With no less sadness or beauty, and with that philosophy towards which -poetry ever has a bias, our poet of dreams thus reflects, on watching -the ephemera that dart with glimmering wings in keen delight where the -breezes fling the sweets of May: - - Creatures of gauze and velvet wings, - With a day of gleams and flowers, - Who knows--in the light of eternal things-- - Your life is less than ours? - - Weary at last, it is ours, like you, - When our brief day is done, - Folding our hands, to say adieu, - And pass with the setting sun. - -One must say of George Marion McClellan: “Here is a finely touched -spirit that responds deeply to the mystery and charm of mountains and -starry skies, and that charm and mystery he is capable of expressing in -stanzas of lyric beauty.” Every page of his book will confirm for the -reader the estimate he may have formed from the quotations already -given. Without rifling it of its choicest treasures I will put before -the reader a few entire poems which I am sure will give increased -delight on repeated readings: - -TO HOLLYHOCKS - - Gay hollyhocks with flaming bells - And waving plumes, as gently swells - The breeze upon the Summer air, - You bind me still with magic spells - When to the wind, in grave farewells, - You bow in all your graces fair. - - You bring me back the childhood view, - Where arching skies and deepest blue - Stretch on in endless lengths above; - To see you so awakes anew - Long past emotions, from which grew - My wild and first heart-throbs of love. - - There is in all your brilliant dyes, - Your gorgeousness and azure skies, - A joy like soothing summer rain; - Yet in the scene there vaguely lies - A something half akin to sighs, - Along the borderland of pain. - -THE HILLS OF SEWANEE - - Sewanee Hills of dear delight, - Prompting my dreams that used to be, - I know you are waiting me still to-night - By the Unika Range of Tennessee. - - The blinking stars in endless space, - The broad moonlight and silvery gleams, - To-night caress your wind-swept face, - And fold you in a thousand dreams. - - Your far outlines, less seen than felt, - Which wind with hill propensities, - In moonlight dreams I see you melt - Away in vague immensities. - - And, far away, I still can feel - Your mystery that ever speaks - Of vanished things, as shadows steal - Across your breast and rugged peaks. - - O dear blue hills, that lie apart, - And wait so patiently down there, - Your peace takes hold upon my heart - And makes its burden less to bear. - -THE FEET OF JUDAS - - Christ washed the feet of Judas! - The dark and evil passions of his soul, - His secret plot, and sordidness complete, - His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole, - And still in love he stooped and washed his feet. - - Christ washed the feet of Judas! - Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him, - His bargain with the priest, and more than this, - In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim, - Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss. - - Christ washed the feet of Judas! - And so ineffable his love ’twas meet, - That pity fill his great forgiving heart, - And tenderly he wash the traitor’s feet, - Who in his Lord had basely sold his part. - - Christ washed the feet of Judas! - And thus a girded servant, self-abased, - Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven - Was ever too great to wholly be effaced, - And, though unasked, in spirit be forgiven. - - And so if we have ever felt the wrong - Of trampled rights, of caste, it matters not, - What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long, - Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot: - Christ washed the feet of Judas. - -IN MEMORY OF KATIE REYNOLDS, DYING - - O Death! - If thou hast aught of tenderness, - Be kindly in thy touch - Of her whose fragile slenderness - Was overburdened much - With life. And let her seem to go to sleep, - As often does a tired child, when it has grown - Too tired to longer weep. - - A rose but half in bloom-- - She is too young and beautiful to die, - But yet, if she must go, - Let her go out as goes a sigh - From tired life and woe. - And let her keep, in death’s brief space - This side the grave, the dusky beauty still - Belonging to her face. - - She must have been - Of those upon the trembling lyre - Of whom the poets sung: - “Whom the gods love” and desire - Fade and “die young.” - Her life so loved on earth was brief, - But yet withal so beautiful there is no cause, - But in our loss, for grief. - -This poet, formerly a school principal in Louisville, Kentucky, is now -in Los Angeles, California, whither he took his tubercular son--in -vain--endeavoring to establish there a sanitarium for persons of his -race afflicted as his son was. For the third time: _ad astra per -aspera_. - - -_IV. Charles P. Wilson_ - -The following verses were written by a man in the Missouri State -Penitentiary. He might prefer that his name be withheld. He will shortly -go forth a free man and a better one--so resolved to be--with verses -enough composed during his period of incarceration to make a small book: - -SOMEBODY’S CHILD - - Don’t be too quick to condemn me, - Because I have made a bad start; - Remember you see but the surface, - And know not what’s in the heart. - I may bear the marks of a sinful life, - And I may have been a bit wild; - But back of all remains this fact, - That I am somebody’s child. - - My cheeks by tears may be polished, - And my heart is no stranger to pain; - I know what it is to be friendless, - And to learn each affliction means gain. - I may be out in life’s storm, - And misfortune around me has piled; - But kindly remember this little fact, - That I am somebody’s child. - - Probably to-night you’ll be happy, - In some joys or pleasures you’ll share: - And that very same moment may find me, - Tearfully pleading in prayer. - So don’t be too harsh when you judge me, - For your judgment with God will be filed; - You would know--could you see past the surface-- - That I am somebody’s child. - -And so a fourth time the motto--or is it a proverb?--_ad astra per -aspera._ - - -_V. Leon R. Harris_ - -Now editor of the Richmond (Indiana) _Blade_, contributor of -short-stories to _The Century Magazine_, an honored citizen and the head -of a respected family, Leon R. Harris was an orphan asylum’s ward. Most -splendidly has he, yet in his early thirties, illustrated the old adage -chosen as a heading for this chapter. His father, a roving musician, -took no interest in the future poet. His mother died and left him -almost in the cradle. The orphanage which became his refuge gave him at -least food, shelter, and schooling to the fourth grade. Then he was -given to a Kentucky family to be reared. It was virtual slavery, and the -boy ran away from over-work and beatings. Making his escape to -Cincinnati he was befriended by a traveling salesman and began to find -himself. At eleven years of age, some of his verses were printed in a -Cincinnati daily with “Author Unknown” attached. He now made his way to -Berea and worked his way for two years in that good old college. Then -for three years he worked his way in Tuskegee. - -[Illustration: LEON R. HARRIS] - -We next find him in Iowa, married; then in North Carolina, teaching -school; then in Ohio, working in steel mills. This last was his -employment until about two years ago. His short stories and poems are -right out of his life. In the former the peonage system, prevalent in -some sections of the South, and the cruelties of the convict labor -camps are more powerfully portrayed than anywhere else in American -literature. The following poem will represent his writings in verse: - -THE STEEL MAKERS - - Filled with the vigor such jobs demand, - Strong of muscle and steady of hand, - Before the flaming furnaces stand - The men who make the steel. - ’Midst the sudden sounds of falling bars, - ’Midst the clang and bang of cranes and cars, - Where the earth beneath them jerks and jars, - They work with willing zeal. - - They meet each task as they meet each day, - Ready to labor and full of play; - Their faces are grimy, their hearts are gay, - There is sense in the songs they sing; - While stooped like priests at the holy mass, - In the beaming light of the lurid gas, - Their jet black shadows each other pass, - And their hammers loudly ring. - - What do they see through the furnace door, - From which the dazzling white lights pour? - Ah, more than the sizzling liquid ore - They see as they gaze within! - For a band of steel engirdles the earth, - Binds men to men from their very birth, - Through all that exists of any worth - There courses a steely vein. - - Steamers that ply o’er the ocean deep, - Trains which over the mountains creep, - The ships of the air that dart and leap - Where the screaming eagles soar; - The plow which produces the nation’s food, - The bars that keep the bad from the good, - Skyscrapers standing where forests stood, - They see through their furnace door. - - They see the secretive submarines, - And the noisy, whirring big machines, - Grinding steel into numberless things - The people know and need; - The scissors that fashion wee babies’ clothes, - The beds where the pallid sick repose, - The knife that the nervy surgeon holds - O’er the wounds that gape and bleed. - - Yet more they see through the furnace door! - They see the bursting hot shells pour - On the battle-fields as in days of yore - The Deluge waters fell. - They see the bloody bayonet blade, - The unsheathed sword and the hand grenade, - The havoc, the wreck and the ruin made - By the steel they roll and sell. - - All this through the furnace door they see - As they work and laugh--they are full and free; - Their steel has purchased their liberty - From want and the tyrant’s sway. - And just as long as their gas shall burn, - In times of need will the people turn - To them for their product and they shall learn - Its value endures for aye. - - For of what they make we are servants all, - They have bound our lives in an iron thrall, - We do their bidding, we heed their call, - As they work with willing zeal. - So tap your heats with a courage bold, - You’re worth to your world a thousand fold - More than the men who mine her gold, - You men who make her steel! - -Intrinsic merit is in that poem, apart from the circumstance of its -being written by a workman himself. As an interpretation of the life of -his fellow-workmen--their imaginative, inner life--it is a human -document to be reflected upon. As for the artistic quality of the verses -they place you in imagination amid the sights and sounds described and -they have something in them suggestive of the steel bars the men are -making. - - -_VI. Irvin W. Underhill_ - -In what strange disguises comes ofttimes the call to nobler things! Our -happiness not seldom springs out of seeming misfortune. An illustration -is afforded by Mr. Irvin W. Underhill, of Philadelphia, to whom -blindness brought a more glorious seeing--the seeing of truth, of -greater meaning in life, of greater beauty in the world. Out of this new -vision springs a corresponding message in verse, a message not of -bitterness for - -[Illustration: IRVIN W. UNDERHILL] - -what might to another man, in the middle years of his life, have seemed -a bitter loss, but of love, and exhortation, and encouragement. Blind, -he lives in the Light. In his little book, entitled _Daddy’s Love and -Other Poems_, are poems witnessing to a beautiful spirit, poems of -beauty. Because of its sage counsel, however, I pass over some of these -lovelier expressions of sentiment and choose a didactic piece: - -TO OUR BOYS - - I speak to you, my Colored boys, - I bid you to be men, - Don’t put yourselves upon the rack - Like pigeons in a pen. - Come out and face life’s problem, boys, - With faith and courage too, - And justify that wondrous faith, - Abe Lincoln had in you. - - Don’t treat life as a little toy, - A dance or a game of ball; - Those things are all right in their place, - But they are not life’s all. - Life is a problem serious, - Give it the best you have, - Succeed in all you undertake - And help your brother live. - - If farming seems to be your call, - Then take hold of the plough, - And stick it down into the soil - Till sweat runs down your brow. - Then make this resolution firm: - “I’m going to do my best, - And stick this good old plough of mine - Down deeper than the rest.” - - If you’re to be a carpenter - Then train your hand and eye - To work out angles, clean and clear - As any metal die. - Then read up on materials, - On beauty and on style, - And prove to all, the house you build - Is sure to be worth while. - - Why sure, a banker, you can be, - A lawyer or a priest; - Or you can be a merchant prince, - Their work is not the least. - It makes no difference what you try - If you would get the best, - You’ll have to stick that plough of yours - Down deeper than the rest. - - Don’t fawn up to another man - And beg him for a job; - Remember that your brain and his - Were made by the same God. - So use it boys, with all your might, - With faith and courage too, - And justify that wondrous faith - Abe Lincoln had in you. - - -II. AD ASTRA - - -_I. James C. Hughes_ - -There are tragic stories of Negro aspirants for poetic fame that read -like the old stories of English poets in London in the days when the -children of genius starved and died young. As typical of not a few there -is the story of James C. Hughes, of Louisville, Kentucky. The Louisville -_Times_, March 10, 1905, contained his picture and an article by Joseph -S. Cotter in appreciation of his compositions. “This young man,” writes -Cotter, speaking of a collection of verses and prose sketches which -Hughes then had ready for publication, “this young man has the -essentials of the poet, and to me his work is interesting. It is -serious, and preaches while it sings.” - - * * * * * - -To illustrate the range and quality of Hughes I will quote from this -article two selections, one in prose and one in dialect verse: - - - ASPIRATION - - “True love is the same to-day as when the vestal virgins held their - mystic lights along the path of virtue. Virtue wears the same - vesture that she wore upon the ancient plain that led to fame - immortal. Now the royal gates of honor stand ajar for men of - courage, souls who will not time their spirit-lyre to suit the - common chord. Our nation has known men who held within their palms - our country’s destiny: and, smiling in the armor of a fearless - truth, have thrown away their lives. Awake, O countrymen, awake, - this noble flame. The gods will fan it, and the world shall burn - with honor and pure love.” - -The bit of dialect verse follows, taken from a poem entitled _Apology -for Wayward Jim_: - - “You has offen tole us, Massy, - We’s as free as we kin be; - But we needs some kind o’ check, suh, - So’s we’d keep on bein’ free. - - “Please do’ whip ole Jim dis time, suh; - Marse, I ’no’s you’s good an’ kind; - Ain’t no slabery on dis ’arth, suh, - Like de slabery ob de mind. - - “You has offen said obejence - Wuz de key to freedom’s do’-- - When we l’arned dis golden lesson - We wuz free foreber mo’. - - “But you see dese darkies’ minds, suh, - Ain’t so flexerbul as dat, - Dey can’t zackly understand, suh, - What you means by saying dat. - - ’Hain’t but one compound solution - To dis problem, as I see; - Long’s a human soul’s a slabe, suh, - Ain’t no way to make it free.” - -The young author of these selections, failing to get his book published, -lost his mind and “disappeared from view.” So ends his story. - - -_II. Leland Milton Fisher_ - -Another sad story, more frequently repeated in the lives of the writers -represented in this book, is that of Leland Milton Fisher. First I shall -give one of his poems, as passionately sweet a lyric as can be found in -American literature: - -FOR YOU, SWEETHEART - - For you, sweetheart, I’d have your skies - As bright as are your own bright eyes, - And all your day-dreams warm and fair - As is the sunshine in your hair. - The Fates to you should be as kind - As are the thoughts in your pure mind, - And every bird I’d have impart - Its sweetest song to you, sweetheart. - - For you, sweetheart, I’d have each dart - Sorrow fashions for your tender heart, - Thrust in my own thrice happy breast, - That yours might have unbroken rest. - - If you should fall asleep and lie - So very still and quiet that I - Would know your soul had slipped away - From your divinely molded clay, - Then, looking in your fair, sweet face - I’d pray to God: “In thy good grace, - O, Father, let me sleep, nor wake - Again on earth, for her dear sake.” - -Born in Humbolt, Tennessee, in 1875, Fisher died of tuberculosis, ere -yet thirty years of age, leaving behind an unpublished volume of poems. - - -_III. W. Clarence Jordan_ - -In another chapter I have written of a poet whose birthplace was -Bardstown, Kentucky. W. Clarence Jordan, a Negro schoolmaster of -Bardstown, now dead, wrote the following lines in answer to the -questions, so frequently asked in derision, which stands as its title: - -WHAT IS THE NEGRO DOING? - - As we pass along life’s highway, - Day by day, - Thousands daily ask the question, - “What, I pray, - Tell me what’s the Negro doing? - And what course is he pursuing? - What achievements is he strewing - By the way?” - - Many say he’s retrograding - Very fast; - Others say his glory’s fading,-- - Cannot last; - That his prospects now are blighted, - That his chances have been slighted, - This his wrongs cannot be righted. - Time has passed. - - Friends, lift up your eyes; look higher; - Higher still. - There’s the vanguard of our army - On the hill. - You’ve been looking at the rear guard. - Lift your eyes, look farther forward; - Thousands are still pressing starward-- - Ever will. - - -_IV. Roscoe C. Jamison_ - -Roscoe C. Jamison was fortunate in leaving behind him a friend at his -early death, some three years since, who treasured his fugitive verses -sufficiently to gather them together, though but a handful, and send -them out to the world in a little pamphlet. Fortunate also was he in -another friend able to write his elegy: - - Too soon is hushed his silver speech, - The music dies upon his lute, - The cadence falls beyond our reach; - Too soon the Poet’s lips are mute. - -[Illustration: ROSCOE C. JAMISON] - -So wrote in this elegy, _Lacrimae Aethiopiae_, Charles Bertram Johnson, -of this untimely dead singer. Hardly a score of poems are in this -pamphlet, yet enough are here to reveal a poet in the making. Jamison -was a better poet, even in these imperfect pieces, than many a writer of -better verses. Here are the ardent impulses and here are the glowing -ideas from which poetry of the higher order springs. The art, however, -is undisciplined, grammar, metre, and rhymes are sometimes at fault. -However, bold strokes of poetry atone, the effects are the effects of a -real poet. Sometimes one finds in the small collection a poem that is -all but perfect, a production that might have come from a maturer -craftsman. I venture to put him to the test in the following poem: - -CASTLES IN THE AIR - - I build my castles in the air. - How beautiful they seem to me, - Standing in all their glory there, - Like stars above the sea! - - I watch them with admiring eyes, - For in them dwells life’s fondest hope: - If they be swept from out the skies, - In darkness I must grope. - - They hold life’s joys, life’s sweetest dreams; - They make the weary years seem bright. - As one guided by bright starbeams - I struggle through the night. - - Sometimes from out the skies they fall, - And my soul shrieks in its pain; - But from the heights I hear Hope’s call, - “Arise and build again.” - - What though life be with sorrow filled - And each day brings its load of care, - I’m happy still while I can build - My castles in the air! - -Who but will say, despite the metrical defects, this is a real poem? -Another poem will show his art at a better advantage, while the pathos -is of another kind, very touching pathos it is, too: - -A SONG - - I loved you, Dear. I did not know how much, - Until the silence of the Grave lay cold - Between us, and your hand I could not touch, - And your sweet face, oh! never more behold. - - I loved you, Dear. I did not know how true, - Until in other eyes I found no light; - I know--alas!--my Spirit without you - Must drift forever in a starless night! - -A different kind of merit, the merit of intense reprobation of cruel -arrogancy in the one race and of treacherous cowardice in the other, is -exemplified in _The Edict_. Triumphant faith, which is the Negro’s -peculiar heritage, asserts itself in such a way, in the final stanza, as -to lift the poem to the heights of moral feeling. - -THE EDICT - - All these must die before the Morning break: - They who at God an angry finger shake, - Declaring that because He made them White, - Their race should rule the world by sacred right. - They who deny a common Brotherhood-- - Who cry aloud, and think no Blackman good-- - The blood-cursed mob always eager to take - The rope in hand or light the flaming stake, - Jeering the wretch while he in death pain quakes-- - All these must die before the Morning breaks. - - All these must die before the Morning breaks: - The Blackmen, faithless, whose loud laughter wakes - Harsh echoes in the most unbiased places. - They who choose vice, and scorn the gentle graces-- - Who by their manners breed contemptuous hate, - Suggesting jim-crow laws from state to state-- - They who think on earth they may not find - An ideal man nor woman of their kind. - But from some other Race that ideal take-- - All these must die before the Morning break! - - We know, O Lord, that there will come a time, - When o’er the World will dawn the Age Sublime, - When Truth shall call to all mankind to stand - Before Thy throne as Brothers, hand in hand, - Be not displeased with him who this song makes-- - All these must die before the Morning breaks! - -If lyric poetry be self-revealment--and such it is, or it is nothing--we -can learn from the following poem how deep a sorrow at some time in his -life this poet must have experienced: - -HOPELESSNESS - - Had you called from the fire, or from the sea, - From ’mid the roaring flames, or dark’ning wave, - With eagerness I then had come to thee, - To perish with thee if I could not save. - - But now helpless I sit and watch you die, - There is no power can save, the doctors say; - I lift my eyes unto the silent sky, - And wonder why it is that mortals pray. - -The title-poem of the booklet, _Negro Soldiers_, is no doubt Jamison’s -masterpiece. It is worthy of the universal admiration it has won from -those who know it. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE NEW FORMS OF POETRY - - -The newer methods in poetry--free-verse, rhythmic strophes, polyphonic -prose--have been tried with success by only a few Negroes. Of free-verse -particularly not many noteworthy pieces have come from Negro poets. Well -or ill, each may judge according to his taste. But the objection has -been made that the Negro verse-makers of our time are bound by -tradition, are sophisticated craftsmen. More independence, more -differentness, seems to be demanded. But the conditions of their poetic -activity seem to me in this demand to be lost sight of. They are as much -the heirs of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury as their white contemporaries. -And the Negro is said to be preëminently imitative--that is, responsive -to environing example and influence. One requirement and only one can we -lay upon the Negro singer and that is the same we lay upon the artists -of every race and origin. However, for artistic freedom he has an -authority older than free-verse, and that authority is not outside his -own race. It is found in the old plantation melodies--rich in artistic -potentiality beyond exaggeration. - - -I. FREE-VERSE - -In Negro newspapers and magazines, rarely as yet in books, are to be -found some free-verse productions of which I will give some specimens. -From Will Sexton I shall quote here two brief poems in this form and in -a later chapter another (p. 233). His Whitemanesque manner will be -remarked. These brief pieces will suggest a poet of some force: - -_Songs of Contemporary Ethiopia_ - -THE BOMB THROWER - - Down with everything black! - Down with law and order! - Up with the red flag! - Up with the white South! - I am America’s evil genius. - -THE NEW NEGRO - - Out of the mist I see a new America--a land of ideals. - I hear the music of my fathers blended with - the “Stars and Stripes Forever.” - I am the crown of thorns Tyranny must bear - a thousand years-- - I am the New Negro. - -Another vers-librist of individual quality is Andrea Razafkeriefo. He is -a prolific contributor to _The Negro World_, the newspaper organ of the -Universal Negro Improvement Society. This paper regularly gives a -considerable portion of a page of each issue to original verse -contributions. One of Mr. Razafkeriefo’s recent free-verse poems is the -following, in which the style seems to me to be remarkably effective: - -THE NEGRO CHURCH - - That the Negro church possesses - Extraordinary power, - That it is the greatest medium - For influencing our people, - That it long has slept and faltered, - Failed to meet its obligations, - Are, to honest and true thinkers, - Facts which have to be admitted. - - For these reasons there are many - Who would have the church awaken - And adopt the modern methods - Of all other institutions. - Make us more enlightened Christians, - Teach us courtesy and English, - Racial pride and sanitation, - Science, thrift and Negro history. - - Yea, the preacher, like the shepherd, - Should be leader and protector, - And prepare us for the present - Just as well as for the future; - He should know more than Scriptures, - And should ever be acquainted - With all vital, daily subjects - Helpful to his congregation. - - Give us manly, thinking preachers - And not shouting money-makers, - Men of intellect and vision, - Who will really help our people: - Men who make the church a guide-post - To the road of racial progress, - Who will strive to fit the Negro - For this world as well as heaven. - -In another chapter I give one of Mr. Razafkeriefo’s poems in regular -stanzas of the traditional type. It is but just to state that his -productions exhibit a great variety of forms. His moods and traits, too, -are various. There is the evidence of ardent feeling and strong -conviction in most he writes. - -[Illustration: LANGSTON HUGHES] - -This poet gets his strange name (pronounced rä-zäf-ker-rāf) from the -island of Madagascar. His father, now dead, “falling in battle for -Malagasy freedom,” before the poet’s birth, was a nephew of the late -queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona III. His mother, a colored American, was -a daughter of a United States consul to Madagascar. The poet was born -in the city of Washington in 1895 and now resides in Cleveland, Ohio. - -To a young student in Columbia University we are indebted for some of -the most symmetrical and effective free-verse poems that have come to my -attention. His name is Langston Hughes. For information about him I -refer the reader to the first index, at the end of this book. This poem -appeared in _The Crisis_, January, 1922: - -THE NEGRO - - I am a Negro: - Black as the night is black, - Black like the depths of my Africa. - - I’ve been a slave: - Cæsar told me to keep his door-steps clean, - I brushed the boots of Washington. - - I’ve been a worker: - Under my hand the pyramids arose. - I made mortar for the Woolworth building. - - I’ve been a singer: - All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. - I made ragtime. - - I’ve been a victim: - The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. - They lynch me now in Texas. - - I am a Negro: - Black as the night is black, - Black like the depths of my Africa. - -Other specimens of free-verse have been given on pages 67, 102, and 119. -In every instance the poet’s choice of this form seems to me justified -by the particular effectiveness of it. - - -II. PROSE POEMS - - -_I. W. E. Burghardt DuBois_ - -[Illustration: W. E. B. DUBOIS] - -The name of no Negro author is more widely known than that of W. E. -Burghardt DuBois. Editor, historian, sociologist, essayist, poet--he is -celebrated in the Five Continents and the Seven Seas. It is in his -impassioned prose that DuBois is most a poet. _The Souls of Black Folk_ -throbs constantly on the verge of poetry, while the several chapters of -_Darkwater_ end with a litany, chant, or credo, rhapsodical in character -and in free-verse form. In all this work Dr. DuBois is the spokesman of -perhaps as many millions of souls as any man living. - -“A Litany at Atlanta,” placed as an epilogue to “The Shadow of the -Years” in _Darkwater_,[6] should be read as the litany of a race. Modern -literature has not such another cry of agony: - -A LITANY AT ATLANTA - -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 be 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 steepest!_ - -Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, through -blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, -of women strong and free--far from 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 where -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!_ - -Behold this maimed and broken thing, dear God: it was an humble black -man, who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They -told him: _Work and Rise!_ He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but someone -told how someone said another did--one whom he had never seen nor known. -Yet for that man’s crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife -naked to shame, his children to poverty and evil. - - _Hear us, O Heavenly Father!_ - -Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, O God? How long -shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound -in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed -brutes, who do such deeds, high on Thine Altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn -it in hell forever and forever! - - _Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!_ - -Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed -and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy throne, -we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our -stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of -Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the plan; give us the -sign. - - _Keep not Thou silent, O God._ - -Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb -suffering. Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, -heartless thing! - - _Ah! Christ of all the Pities!_ - -Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words! Thou art -still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul’s Soul sit some soft -darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night. - -But whisper--speak--call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to -our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path! - -Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and -without, the liar. Whither? To death? - - _Amen! Welcome, dark sleep!_ - -Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup -pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that -clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet -shudder lest we must,--and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful -shape. - - _Selah!_ - -In yonder East trembles a star. - - _Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!_ - -Thy Will, O Lord, be done! - - _Kyrie Eleison!_ - -Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words. - - _We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ - -We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little -children. - - _We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_ - -Our voices sink in silence and in night. - - _Hear us, good Lord._ - -In night, O God of a godless land! - - _Amen!_ - -In silence, O Silent God. - - _Selah!_ - - -_II. Kelly Miller_ - -[Illustration: KELLY MILLER] - -Dr. Kelly Miller is professor of sociology in Howard University. He has -been professor of mathematics. He is the author of several prose -works--able expositions of aspects of inter-racial problems. It is -rumored that he is a poet. However that may be, his admirable volume of -essays entitled _Out of the House of Bondage_ concludes with a strophic -chant, highly poetical, and poured forth with the fervor of some old -Celtic bard, triumphant in the vision of a new day dawning: - -I SEE AND AM SATISFIED - -The vision of a scion of a despised and rejected race, the span of whose -life is measured by the years of its Golden Jubilee, and whose fancy, -like the vine that girdles the tree-trunk, runneth both forward and -back. - - I see the African savage as he drinks his palmy wine, and basks in - the sunshine of his native bliss, and is happy. - - I see the man-catcher, impelled by thirst of gold, as he entraps - his simple-souled victim in the snares of bondage and death, by use - of force or guile. - - I see the ocean basin whitened with his bones, and the ocean - current running red with his blood, amidst the hellish horrors of - the middle passage. - - I see him laboring for two centuries and a half in unrequited toil, - making the hillsides of our southland to glow with the snow-white - fleece of cotton, and the valleys to glisten with the golden - sheaves of grain. - - I see him silently enduring cruelty and torture indescribable, with - flesh flinching beneath the sizz of angry whip or quivering under - the gnaw of the sharp-toothed bloodhound. - - I see a chivalric civilization instinct with dignity, comity and - grace rising upon pillars supported by his strength and brawny arm. - - I see the swarthy matron lavishing her soul in altruistic devotion - upon the offspring of her alabaster mistress. - - I see the haughty sons of a haughty race pouring out their lustful - passion upon black womanhood, filling our land with a bronzed and - tawny brood. - - I see also the patriarchal solicitude of the kindly-hearted owners - of men, in whose breast not even iniquitous system could sour the - milk of human kindness. - - I hear the groans, the sorrows, the sighings, the soul striving of - these benighted creatures of God, rising up from the low grounds of - sorrow and reaching the ear of Him Who regardeth man of the - lowliest estate. - - I strain my ear to supernal sound, and I hear in the secret - chambers of the Almighty the order to the Captain of Host to break - his bond and set him free. - - I see Abraham Lincoln, himself a man of sorrows and acquainted with - grief, arise to execute the high decree. - - I see two hundred thousand black boys in blue baring their breasts - to the bayonets of the enemy, that their race might have some - slight part in its own deliverance. - - I see the great Proclamation delivered in the year of my birth of - which I became the first fruit and beneficiary. - - I see the assassin striking down the great Emancipator; and the - house of mirth is transformed into the Golgotha of the nation. - - I watch the Congress as it adds to the Constitution new words, - which make the document a charter of liberty indeed. - - I see the new-made citizen running to and fro in the first fruit of - his new-found freedom. - - I see him rioting in the flush of privilege which the nation had - vouchsafed, but destined, alas, not long to last. - - I see him thrust down from the high seat of political power, by - fraud and force, while the nation looks on in sinister silence and - acquiescent guilt. - - I see the tide of public feeling run cold and chilly, as the vial - of racial wrath is wreaked upon his bowed and defenceless head. - - I see his body writhing in the agony of death as his groans issue - from the crackling flames, while the funeral pyre lights the - midnight sky with its dismal glare. My heart sinks with heaviness - within me. - - I see that the path of progress has never taken a straight line, - but has always been a zigzag course amid the conflicting forces of - right and wrong, truth and error, justice and injustice, cruelty - and mercy. - - I see that the great generous American Heart, despite the temporary - flutter, will finally beat true to the higher human impulse, and my - soul abounds with reassurance and hope. - - I see his marvelous advance in the rapid acquisition of knowledge - and acquirement of things material, and attainment in the higher - pursuits of life, with his face fixed upon that light which shineth - brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. - - I see him who was once deemed stricken, smitten of God, and - afflicted, now entering with universal welcome into the patrimony - of mankind, and I look calmly upon the centuries of blood and tears - and travail of soul, and am satisfied. - - -_III. Charles H. Conner_ - -As a companion piece to this litany and this vision I will present -another vision that for calm, clear beauty of style takes us immediately -back to _Pilgrim’s Progress_. The author calls it a sermonette, and it -is one of three contained in a very small book entitled _The Enchanted -Valley_. But the author is no preacher. He is a ship-yard worker in -Philadelphia--I almost said a “common” worker. But such workmen were -never common, anywhere, at any time. Charles Conner wears the garb and -wields the tools of a common workman, but he has most uncommon visions. -He is a seer and a philosopher. He has informed me that there is -American Indian blood in his veins. From the mystical and philosophical -character of his writings, both prose and verse, I should have expected -an East Indian strain. Twice have I visited his humble habitation, and -each time it was a visit to the Enchanted Valley. - -[Illustration: CHARLES H. CONNER] - -THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE NATURAL WORLD - -At the dawning of a day, in a deep valley, a man awoke. - - * * * * * - -It was a valley of treasures that everywhere abounded. - - * * * * * - -He opened his eyes, and beheld the greensward bedecked with many colored -jewels that sparkled in the light. - - * * * * * - -His ears caught the medley of sounds, that awoke innumerable echoes; and -with the balmy air peopled the valley with delights. How he came there, -or why, he knew not; nor scarcely thought or cared. - - * * * * * - -As he gazed upon the multitude of things, in his heart upsprung desire; -and he gathered the treasures that lay around, till his arms were full, -and his body decked in all their bright array. - - * * * * * - -Then the sun went down behind the hill; and the vale grew dark; and the -night air chill; and the place grew solemn, silent, still. - - * * * * * - -A new thing then, to mortal ken, seemed hovering on the threshold near. -A strange, fantastic thing, it crept, intangible, nearer, nearer swept, -the pallid, startling face of Fear! - - * * * * * - -But, the night brings sleep at last--and dreams; and day follows night; -and sunshine follows storm throughout the length of days. But a trace of -the dreams remains, like the faintly clinging scent that marks a hidden -trail; and so, because of his dreams, the man’s desire reached out, and -scaled the lofty peaks that walled him in. - - * * * * * - -His pleasant valley seemed too narrow and confined. - - * * * * * - -So, with his treasures fondly pressed to his beating heart, he tried to -scale the heights. - - * * * * * - -He scrambled and struggled with might and main, slipped and arose; and -fell again and again. The spirit was willing, and valiant, and brave; -but the treasure encumbered it with fatal hold; and held him bound, as -with fold on fold a corpse is held in its lowly grave. So, try as he -might, he could not rise much higher than one’s hands can reach; and one -by one, his gathered treasures lost their brightness and their charm; as -gathered flowers wilt and fade; and his arms weary from the burden that -they bore, let fall and scattered lie, little by little, more and more -of the things he had gathered and vainly prized. And each thing lost was -so much lightness gained, enabling him to mount a little higher up the -rugged steep. And so it was till night was come again at last; and worn -and weary, he sank down to sleep and rest. - - * * * * * - -And, as he slept, his arms relaxed their hold; and down the steep his -dwindling treasures rolled, till the last of them found their natural -level and resting place, the lower stretch of ground. ’Twas then a -strange sight met my gaze, long to be remembered in the coming days of -trial and endeavor. - - * * * * * - -From out that sleeping form a luminous haze arose, airy and white; and -glowed within it an amber fire, as it mounted higher, higher; and, as it -arose, it had the appearance of a man; and its countenance was the -countenance of him that slept. Thus up and up it winged its flight, -until above the highest peak ’twas lost to sight. I pondered the matter -in wonder and awe, until long past the midnight hour, how that a soul -at last gained its longed for power to win the distant height. - - * * * * * - -There is a kingdom of earth, and of water and of air. - - * * * * * - -Each has its own. The heavier cannot rise above its level, to the next -and lighter zone. - - * * * * * - -The treasures of the soul’s desire, were treasures of earth, whose -lightest joys were too heavy and too gross to be sustained in the finer, -rarer atmosphere; and thus were as a leaden weight that anchored the -soul to earth, without its being at all aware that the things it thought -so pleasant and so fair, were shackles to bind it hard and fast; and -make it impossible for it to gain the region that instinctively it felt -and knew was the rightful place of its abode. - - -_IV. William Edgar Bailey_ - -Yet one more prose-poem I will give, as a sort of coda to the series. It -is taken from a paper-covered booklet entitled _The Firstling_, by -William Edgar Bailey, from which _The Slump_, on page 65, was taken: - - -TO A WILD ROSE - -The wild rose silently peeps from its uncouth habitation, thrives and -flourishes in its glory; its fragrant bud bows to sip the nectar of the -morning. Its delicate blossom blushes in the balmy breeze as the wind -tells its tale of adoration. Performing well its part, it withers and -decays; the chirping sparrow perches serenely on its boughs, only to -find it wrapped in sadness and solemnity--yet its grief-stained leaf and -weather beaten branches silently chant euphonic choruses in natural -song, in solemn commemoration of its faded splendor. - -Dead, yes dead--but in thy hibernal demise dost thou bequeath a truth -eternal as the stars. I saw thee, Rose, when the elf of spring hung thy -floral firstling upon that thorny bower and robed thy ungainly form in a -garb of green, and, Rose, thou wert sweet! - - * * * * * - -I saw the same vernal sprite pay homage to thy highbrowed kinsman in -yonder stench-bestifled dell, and, in his pause of an instant, baptized -its sacred being in the same aromatic blood. I saw thee, Rose, in thy -autumnal desolation, when the Storm-God was wont to do thee harm, laid -waste thy foliage, and cast at thy feet, as a challenge, his mantle of -snow, and the Law of Non-resistance was still unbroken. - - * * * * * - -Tell me thy story, Rose! Do the stars in their unweary watch breathe -forth upon thee a special benediction from the sky? Or did the wind waft -a drop of blood from the Cross to thy dell to sanctify thy being? Oh, -leave me not, thou Redeemer of the Woods, to plod the way alone! My -Nazarene, grant but to me a double portion of thy humble pride--and in -my tearful grief permit thou me to pluck a fragrant thought from thy -thorny bosom! - - -_V. R. Nathaniel Dett_ - -Primarily a composer and pianist, Mr. Dett exemplifies the close kinship -of poetry and music, for in the former art as well as in the latter he -exhibits a finely creative spirit. To speak first of his compositions -for the piano, the following works are widely known and greatly admired -by lovers of music: “Magnolia Suite,” “In the Bottoms Suite,” “Listen to -the Lambs,” “Marche Negre,” “Arietta,” “Magic Song,” “Open Yo’ Eyes,” -and “Hampton, My Home by the Sea.” Mr. Dett took a degree in music at -Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and a Harvard prize in music (1920). The -musical endowment for which his race is celebrated is cultured and -refined in him and guided by science. The basis of his brilliant -compositions is to be found in the folk melodies of his people. The -musical genius of his people expresses itself through him with -conscious, perfected art. To sit under the spell of his performance of -his own pieces is to acquire a new idea of the Negro people. - -[Illustration: R. NATHANIEL DETT] - -The same refined and exalted spirit reveals itself in Mr. Dett’s verse -as in his music. Having this combination of gifts, he cannot but raise -the highest expectations. I present in this place a poem in blank verse -of nobly contemplative mood, suggesting far more, as the best poems do, -than it says: - -AT NIAGARA - - --No, no! Not tonight, my Friend, - I may not, cannot go with you tonight. - And think not that I love you any less - Because this now I’d rather be alone. - My heart is strangely torn; unwonted thoughts - Have so infused themselves into my mind - That altogether there is wrought in me - A sort of hapless mood, whose phantom power - Born perhaps of my own fantasies - Has ta’en me. By its subtle spell - I’m wooed and changed from what’s my natural self. - I am so possessed I can but wish - For nothing else save this and solitude. - If in companionship I sought relief - Yours indeed would be the first I’d seek. - There is none other whom I so esteem, - None who quite so perfect understands. - Your presence always is a soothing balm, - --Ne’er failing me when troubled. But tonight, - Forgive me, Friend--I’d rather be alone. - Leave me, let me with myself commune. - Presently if no change come, I shall go - Stand in the shadowed gorge, or where the moon - Throws her silver on the rippling stream, - List to the sounding cataract’s thundering fall, - Or hark to spirit voices in the wind. - For methinks sometimes that these strange moods - Are heaven-sent us by the jealous God - Who’d thus remind us that no human love - Can fully satisfy the longing heart: - Perhaps an intimation sent to souls - That he would speak somewhat, or nearer draw. - Therefore I’ll to Him. Talking waters, stars, - The moon and whispering trees shall make me wise - In what it is He’d have my spirit know. - And Nature singing from the earth and sky - Shall fill me with such peace, that in the morn - I’ll be the gay glad self you’ve always known. - Urge me no further, now you understand. - A nobler friend than you none ever knew-- - But not this time. Tonight I’ll be alone; - And if from moonlit valley God should speak, - Or in the tumbling waters sound a call, - Or whisper in the sighing of the wind, - He’ll find me with an undivided heart - Patient waiting to hear; but Friend,--alone. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -DIALECT VERSE - - -The reader of these pages may ask: “But where is the Negro’s humorous -verse? Here is the pathos, where is the comedy of Negro life?” It may -also be asked where the dialect verse is, and the dramatic narratives -and character pieces that made Dunbar famous. - -The present-day Negro poets do not, as has been asserted, spurn dialect. -Many of them have given a portion of their pages to character pieces in -dialect, humorous in effect. Whether those who have excluded such pieces -from their books have done so on principle or not I cannot say. In -general, however, these writers are too deeply earnest for dialect -verse, and the “broken tongue” is too suggestive of broken bodies and -servile souls. But by those who have employed dialect its uses and -effects have been well understood. Dialect, as is proven by Burns, -Lowell, Riley, Dunbar, often gets nearer the heart than the language of -the schools is able to do, and for home-spun philosophy, for mother-wit, -for folk-lore, and for racial humor, for whatever is quaint and peculiar -and native in any people, it is the only proper medium. Poets of the -finest art from Theocritus to Tennyson have so used it. Genius here as -elsewhere will direct the born poet and instruct him when to use dialect -and when the language that centuries of tradition have refined and -standardized and encrusted with poetic associations. There is a world of -poetic wealth in the strangely naïve heart of the rough-schooled Negro -for which the smooth-worn, disconsonanted language of the cabin and the -field is beautifully appropriate. There is also another world of poetic -wealth in the Negro of culture for which only the language of culture is -adequate. To such we must say: “All things are yours.” - -While, as remarked, many Negro verse-writers have used dialect -occasionally, in the ways indicated, Waverley Turner Carmichael has made -it practically his one instrument of expression in his little book -entitled _From the Heart of a Folk_. A representative piece is the -following: - -MAMMY’S BABY SCARED - - Hush now, mammy’s baby scaid, - Don’ it cry, eat yo’ bread; - Nothin’ ain’t goin’ bother you, - Does’, it bothers mammy too. - - Mammy ain’t goin’ left it ’lone - W’ile de chulen all are gone; - Hush, now, don’ it cry no mo’e, - Ain’t goin’ lay it on de flo’. - - Hush now, finish out yo’ nap, - W’ile I make yo’ luttle cap; - Blessid luttle sugar-pie, - Hush now, baby, don’ it cry. - - Mammy’s goin’ to make its dres’, - Go to sleep an’ take yo’ res’; - Hush now, don’ it cry no mo’e, - Ain’t goin’ lay you on de flo’. - -Carmichael was born at Snow Hill, Alabama, and in the Industrial -Institute there received the rudiments of an education, which was added -to by a summer term at Harvard. Since the book mentioned I have seen -nothing from his pen. - -The elder Cotter in _A White Song and a Black Song_ gives us in the -second part several dialect pieces in the most successful manner. -Several are satirical, like the following: - -THE DON’T-CARE NEGRO - - Neber min’ what’s in your cran’um - So your collar’s high an’ true. - Neber min’ what’s in your pocket - So de blackin’s on your shoe. - - Neber min’ who keeps you comp’ny - So he halfs up what he’s tuk. - Neber min’ what way you’s gwine - So you’s gwine away from wuk. - - Neber min’ de race’s troubles - So you profits by dem all. - Neber min’ your leaders’ stumblin’ - So you he’ps to mak’ dem fall. - - Neber min’ what’s true to-morrow - So you libes a dream to-day. - Neber min’ what tax is levied - So it’s not on craps or play. - - Neber min’ how hard you labors - So you does it to de en’ - Dat de judge is boun’ to sen’ you - An’ your record to de “pen.” - - Neber min’ your manhood’s risin’ - So you habe a way to stay it. - Neber min’ folks’ good opinion - So you have a way to slay it. - - Neber min’ man’s why an’ wharfo’ - So de worl’ is big an’ roun. - Neber min’ whar next you’s gwine to - So you’s six foot under groun’. - -Raymond Garfield Dandridge in _The Poet and Other Poems_ has included a -handful of dialect pieces which prove him a master of this species of -composition. I will select but one to represent this class of his work -here: - -DE INNAH PART - - I ’fess Ise ugly, big, an’ ruff, - Mah voice is husky, mannah’s gruff; - But, mah gal sed, “Neb mine yore hide, - I jedged you by yore inside side”; - An’ sed, dat she hab alwuz foun’, - De gole beneaf de surfuss groun’. - - She claims dat offen rail ruff hides - Am boun’ erroun’ hi’ grade insides; - W’ile sum dat ’pear “sharp ez a tack” - Kinceals a heart dat’s hard an’ black; - An’, to prove her way ob thinkin’, - Gibs fo’ zample Abeham Linkin. - - Ole “Hones’ Abe,” so lank an’ tall, - Worn’t no parlah posin’ doll: - Yet he stood out miles erbove - Uddah men, in truf an’ love. - An’ in han’lin’ ’fairs of state, - Proved de greates’ ob de great. - - In makin’ great men, Nature mus’ - Fo’ got erbout de beauty dus’ - An’ fashun dem frum nachel clay, - De gritty kine, dat doan decay. - But, mos’ her time she spent, I know, - Erpon de parts dat duzen show. - -Two poems by Sterling M. Means, one in standard English and one in -dialect may well be placed here side by side for comparison as being -identical in theme and feeling, and differing but in manner. They are -taken from his book entitled _The Deserted Cabin and Other Poems_: - -THE OLD PLANTATION GRAVE - - ’Tis a scene so sad and lonely, - ’Tis the site of ancient toil; - Where our fathers bore their burdens, - Where they sleep beneath the soil; - And the fields are waste and barren, - Where the sugar cane did grow, - Where they tilled the corn and cotton, - In the years of long ago; - - And along the piney hillside, - Where the hound pursued the slave, - In the dreary years of bondage, - There he fills an humble grave. - -THE OLD DESERTED CABIN - - Dis ole deserted cabin - Remin’s me ob de past; - An’ when I gits ter t’inkin’, - De tears comes t’ick an’ fast. - - I wunner whur’s A’nt Doshy, - I wunner whur’s Brur Jim; - I hyeahs no corn-songs ringin’, - I hyeahs no Gospel hymn. - - Dis ole deserted cabin - Am tumblin’ in decay; - An’ all its ole-time dwellers - Hab gone de silent way. - - Dey voices hushed in silence, - De cabin drear an’ lone; - An’ dey who used ter lib hyeah - Long sense is dead an’ gone. - -J. Mord Allen’s poems and tales in dialect are worthy of distinction. -They are executed in the true spirit of art. I should rank his book, -elsewhere named, as one of the few best the Negro has contributed to -literature. I will give here one specimen of his dialect verse: - -A VICTIM OF MICROBES - - NOTE.--Physicians are agreed that laziness is a microbe disease. - - Go en fetch er lawyer, ’Tilda, - ’Kaze I wants ter make mah will; - Neenter min’ erbout de doctor-- - ’Tain’t no use ter take er pill.-- - Chunk up de kitchen fire, - En fetch mah easy-ch’er, - En put er piller in it: - Maybe I’ll git better hyeah. - I done hyeahed de doctor say it--de doctor hisse’f said it-- - I’m plumb chock full o’ microbes en mah time’s ercomin’ quick. - So, ’stid o’ up en fussin’ wid me fer bein’ lazy, - Yer’d better be er nussin’ me, ’kaze I’m jes’ mighty sick. - - I ’spec’ I must er cotch it - Back in Tennessee; - ’Kaze, fur ez I kin ’member, - I wuz bad ez I could be-- - P’intly hated hoein’ ’taters-- - Couldn’t chop er stick o’ wood-- - Couldn’t pick er sack o’ cotton-- - Never wuz er lick o’ good. - En de folks dey called me lazy--my own mammy called me lazy - When, ’stid o’ gwine plowin’, I wuz fishin’ in de creek; - Took en tole de white folks ’bout it, en made er heap o’ trouble, - En all fer want o’ medersun--me bein’ mighty sick. - - So, now yer knows de reason - Why I’m always loafin’ ’roun’, - When jobs is runnin’ after men - In ev’y part o’ town. - Dar’s patches on mah breeches, - En you’s er sight ter see; - Dat’s de work o’ dem same microbes, - En it kain’t be laid on me. - ’Kaze de doctor he explained it, en de doctor’s book explained it, - En some Latin words explained it, en explained it mighty quick-- - It’s mah lights er else mah liver, er maybe, its mah stomach-- - It’s somep’n in mah insides, en it sho’ has made me sick. - - En so, I hope yer’ll git yerse’f - Er washin’, now, er two, - Er get er job o’ scrubbin’ - Er somp’n else ter do; - ’Kaze dat doctor p’intly showed me - So I couldn’t he’p but tell - Dat dem microbes got me han’ en foot - En I jes’ kain’t git well. - Darfo’ I hope yer’ll he’p me ter pass mah las’ days easy, - En keep er fire in de stove en somep’n in de pan. - I know it’s hard ter do it, en I’m sorry I kain’t he’p yer; - But me ’n de doctor bofe knows I’m er mighty sick man. - -James Weldon Johnson entitled a section of his book _Jingles and -Croons_. Among these pieces, so disparagingly designated, are to be -found some of the best dialect writing in the whole range of Negro -literature. Every quality of excellence is there. The one piece I give -is perhaps not above the average of a score in his book: - -MY LADY’S LIPS AM LIKE DE HONEY - -(Negro Love Song) - - Breeze a-sighin’ and a-blowin’, - Southern summer night. - Stars a-gleamin’ and a-glowin’, - Moon jus shinin’ right. - Strollin’, like all lovers do, - Down de lane wid Lindy Lou; - Honey on her lips to waste; - ’Speck I’m gwine to steal a taste. - - Oh, ma lady’s lips am like de honey, - Ma lady’s lips am like de rose; - An’ I’m jes like de little bee a-buzzin’ - ’Round de flowers wha’ de nectah grows. - Ma lady’s lips dey smile so temptin’, - Ma lady’s teeth so white dey shine, - Oh, ma lady’s lips so tantalizin’, - Ma lady’s lips so close to mine. - - Bird a-whistlin’ and a-swayin’ - In de live-oak tree; - Seems to me he keeps a-sayin’, - “Kiss dat gal fo’ me.” - Look heah, Mister Mockin’ Bird, - Gwine to take you at yo’ word; - If I meets ma Waterloo, - Gwine to blame it all on you. - - Oh, ma lady’s lips am like de honey, - Ma lady’s lips am like de rose; - An’ I’m jes like de little bee a-buzzin’ - ’Round de flowers wha’ de nectah grows. - Ma lady’s lips dey smile so temptin’, - Ma lady’s teeth so white dey shine, - Oh, ma lady’s lips so tantalizin’, - Ma lady’s lips so close to mine. - - Honey in de rose, I ’spose, is - Put der fo’ de bee; - Honey on her lips, I knows, is - Put der jes fo’ me. - Seen a sparkle in her eye, - Heard her heave a little sigh; - Felt her kinder squeeze mah han’, - ’Nuff to make me understan’. - -Numerous other writers would furnish quite as good specimens of -dialectical verse as those given. This medium of artistic expression is -not being neglected, it is only made secondary and, as it were, -incidental. By perhaps half of the poets it is not used. With a few, and -they of no little talent, it is the main medium. Among this few, -Carmichael has been named; S. Jonathan Clark, of Dublin, Mississippi, -and Theodore Henry Shackelford, of Jamaica Plains, New York, are others. - -[Illustration: THEODORE HENRY SHACKELFORD] - -Shackelford, with little schooling, displays a versatility of talent. -His own pen has illustrated with interesting realistic sketches his book -entitled _My Country and Other Poems_, and for some of his lyrics he has -written music. A large proportion of his pieces are in dialect, much in -the spirit of Dunbar. His best productions in standard English are -ballads. He tells a tale in verse with Wordsworthian simplicity and -feeling. Mr. Clark is a school principal, with the education that -implies. He has not yet published a book. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE POETRY OF PROTEST - - -[Illustration: EQUALITY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL - -(Photograph of a panel of the Carl Schurz Monument)] - -As elsewhere intimated there is being produced in America a literature -of which America, as the term is commonly understood, is not aware. It -is a literature of protest--protest sometimes pathetic and prayerful, -sometimes vehement and bitter. It comes from Negro writers, in prose and -verse, in the various forms of fiction, drama, essay, editorial, and -lyric. It is only with the lyric form that we are here concerned. Of -that we shall make a special presentation, in this chapter. - -An artistic and restrained expression of the protest against irrational -color prejudice, in the plaintive, pathetic key, is found in the -following free-verse poem by Winston Allen: - -THE BLACK VIOLINIST - - I touched the violin, - I, whose hand was black, - I touched the violin - In a grand salon. - I touched the violin - In a Russian palace. - I touched the violin - And the dream-born strains - Chanted by the Congo - Soared to Heaven’s chambers. - - Could I touch the violin? - I, whose hand was black? - And bring to life dream music? - Men had taunted me, - Age-worn months: their jeers - Snapped to bits my heartstrings, - Snapped my inner soul; - And the sting of living - Tortured me the livelong day. - -Sometimes the protest runs in a lighter vein--as thus, in verses -entitled: - -OLD JIM CROW - - Wherever we live, it’s right to forgive, - It’s wrong to hold malice, we know, - But there’s one thing that’s true, from all points of view, - All Negroes hate old man Jim Crow. - - His home is in hell; he loves here to dwell; - We meet him wherever we go; - In all public places, where live both the races, - You’ll always see Mr. Jim Crow. - - Be we well educated, even to genius related, - We may have a big pile of dough, - That cuts not a figger, you still are a nigger, - And that is the law with Jim Crow. - _The Nashville Eye._ - -But the Negro is seldom humorous these days on the subject of racial -discriminations. Occasionally, in dialect verse, he still makes merry -with the foibles or over-accentuated traits of certain types of the -Negro. In general, however, the Negro verse-smith goes to his work with -a grim aspect. He is there to smite. Sometimes the anvil clangs, more -mightily than musically. But there is precedent. - -A stanza each from two poems somewhat intense will serve to show the -character of much verse in Negro newspapers. The first is from verses -entitled “Sympathy,” by Tilford Jones: - - Mourn for the thousands slain, - The youthful and the strong; - Mourn for the last; but pray, - For those hung by the mobbing throng. - Pray to our God above, - To break the fell destroyer’s sway, - And show His saving love. - -The second is the last stanza of a poem entitled _Shall Race Hatred -Prevail?_ by Adeline Carter Watson. - - By the tears of Negro mothers, - By the woes of Negro wives, - By the sighs of Negro children, - By your gallant snuffed-out lives, - By the throne of God eternal; - Standing hard by Heaven’s gate, - Ye shall crush this cursed, infernal, - Western stigma: groundless hate! - -The following two poems have a world of pathos for every reflecting -person, in the unanswered question of each. The first is by Mrs. Georgia -Douglas Johnson: - -TO MY SON - - Shall I say, “My son, you are branded in this country’s pageantry, - Foully tethered, bound forever, and no forum makes you free?” - Shall I mark the young light fading through your soul-enchanneled eye, - As the dusky pall of shadows screen the highway of your sky? - Or shall I with love prophetic bid you dauntlessly arise, - Spurn the handicap that binds you, taking what the world denies? - Bid you storm the sullen fortress built by prejudice and wrong, - With a faith that shall not falter in your heart and on your tongue! - -The second is by Will Sexton: - -TO MY LOST CHILD - - It is well, child of my heart, the rosebush drops - its petals on your grave. - It is well, child of my heart, the sparrow sings to - you when Aurora has rouged the sky. - In your trundle bed deep in the bosom of the earth - you can dream pleasanter dreams than I. - You have never felt the sting of living in a white - man’s civilization and beneath a white man’s laws. - You have never been forced to dance to the music of - hate played by an idle orchestra. - You have never toiled long hours and bowed and - scraped for the chance to breathe. - In your dreams you wonder in the Heaven beyond the - skies with the God civilization rebukes. - Tell me, little child, are you not happy in that - realm no white man can enter? - -In much of this utterance of protest, this arraignment of the white -man’s civilization that rebukes God, there may be more passion than -poesy. But out of such passion, as it were a rumbling of thunder, the -lightning will one day leap. A poet born and reared in South Carolina, -Joshua Henry Jones, Jr., appeals from man’s inhumanities to God’s -prevailing power in passionate stanzas of which this is the first, the -rest being like: - - They’ve lynched a man in Dixie. - O God, behold the crime. - And midst the mad mob’s howling - How sweet the church bells chime! - They’ve lynched a man in Dixie. - You say this cannot be? - See where his lead-torn body - Mute hangs from yonder tree. - -This or a similar lynching provoked the following lines from another, -Walter Everette Hawkins, in a poem entitled _A Festival in Christendom_. -After relating that the white people of a certain community were on -their way to church on the Sabbath day, the poem continues: - - And so this Christian mob did turn - From prayer to rob, to lynch and burn. - A victim helplessly he fell - To tortures truly kin to hell; - They bound him fast and strung him high, - They cut him down lest he should die - Before their energy was spent - In torturing to their heart’s content. - They tore his flesh and broke his bones, - And laughed in triumph at his groans; - They chopped his fingers, clipped his ears - And passed them round as souvenirs. - They bored hot irons in his side - And reveled in their zeal and pride; - They cut his quivering flesh away - And danced and sang as Christians may; - Then from his side they tore his heart - And watched its quivering fibres dart. - And then upon his mangled frame - They piled the wood, the oil and flame. - Lest there be left one of his creed, - One to perpetuate his breed; - Lest there be one to bear his name - Or build the stock from which he came, - They dragged his bride up to the pyre - And plunged her headlong in the fire, - Full-freighted with an unborn child, - Hot embers on her form they piled. - And they raised a Sabbath song, - The echo sounded wild and strong, - A benediction to the skies - That crowned the human sacrifice. - -Few are the poets quoted or mentioned in this volume who have not -contributed to this literature of protest. James Weldon Johnson, whose -predominant motive is artistic creation, affords more than one poem in -which the note of protest is sounded in pathos. Pathos is indeed the -characteristic note of the great body of Negro verse. Aided by the two -preceding extracts to an understanding of Johnson’s point of view, the -reader will appreciate the following poem, remarkable for that restraint -which adds to the potency of art: - -THE BLACK MAMMY - - O whitened head entwined with turban gay, - O kind black face, O crude, but tender hand, - O foster-mother in whose arms there lay - The race whose sons are masters of the land! - It was thine arms that sheltered in their fold, - It was thine eyes that followed through the length - Of infant days these sons. In times of old - It was thy breast that nourished them to strength. - So often hast thou to thy bosom pressed - The golden head, the face and brow of snow; - So often has it ’gainst thy broad, dark breast - Lain, set off like a quickened cameo. - Thou simple soul, as cuddling down that babe - With thy sweet croon, so plaintive and so wild, - Came ne’er the thought to thee, swift like a stab, - That it some day might crush thine own black child? - -There died in Fort McHenry hospital, February, 2, 1921, a soldier-poet -of the Negro race, who had been called “the poet laureate of the New -Negro,” his name Lucian B. Watkins. He deserved the title, whatever may -be the exact definition of “the New Negro.” For in his lyrics, of many -forms, racial consciousness reached a degree of intensity to which only -a disciplined sense of art set a limit.--He was born in a cabin at -Chesterfield, Virginia, struggled in the usual way for the rudiments of -book-knowledge, became a teacher, then a soldier. His health was wrecked -in the World War. He died before his powers were matured.--Short and -simple are the annals of the poet. Before one of his intenser race poems -I shall give his last lyric cry, uttered but a few days before his -lingering death: - -[Illustration: LUCIAN B. WATKINS] - - My fallen star has spent its light - And left but memory to me; - My day of dream has kissed the night - Farewell, its sun no more I see; - My summer bloomed for winter’s frost: - Alas, I’ve lived and loved and lost! - - What matters it to-day should earth - Lay on my head a gold-bright crown - Lit with the gems of royal worth - Befitting well a king’s renown?-- - My lonely soul is trouble-tossed, - For I have lived and loved and lost. - - Great God! I dare not question Thee-- - Thy way eternally is just; - This seeming mystery to me - Will be revealed, if I but trust; - Ah, Thou alone dost know the cost - When one has lived and loved and lost. - -The following sonnet, entitled “The New Negro,” will serve to represent -much of Watkins’s verse: - - He thinks in black. His God is but the same - John saw--with hair “like wool” and eyes “as fire”-- - Who makes the visions for which men aspire. - His kin is Jesus and the Christ who came - Humbly to earth and wrought His hallowed aim - ’Midst human scorn. Pure is his heart’s desire; - His life’s religion lifts; his faith leads higher. - Love is his Church, and Union is its name. - - Lo, he has learned his own immortal rôle - In this momentous drama of the hour; - Has read aright the heavens’ Scriptural scroll - ’Bove ancient wrong--long boasting in its tower. - Ah, he has sensed the truth. Deep in his soul - He feels the manly majesty of power. - -The protest not infrequently takes the form of entreaty and appeal, -sometimes the form of an invocation of divine wrath upon the doers of -evil. The following poem from Watkins, unique and effective in form and -biblical phrasing, is the kind of appeal that will not out of the mind: - -A MESSAGE TO THE MODERN PHARAOHS - - (Loose him and let him go--John 11.44) - - “Loose him!”--this man on whom you plod - Beneath your heel hate-iron-shod; - His silent sorrow troubles God-- - “Let him go!” - - There will be plagues, wars will not cease,-- - There cannot be a lasting peace - Until this being you release-- - “Let him go!” - - Each doomful kingdom--throne and crown-- - Built on the lowly fettered down, - Shall perish--lo, the heavens frown-- - “Let him go!” - - Naught but a name is Liberty, - Naught but a name--Democracy, - Till love has made each mortal free-- - “Let him go!” - - “Loose him!” He has his part to play - In Life’s Great Drama, day by day,-- - He has his mission, God’s own way,-- - “Let him go!” - - “Loose him!” ’Twill be your master rôle, - ’Twill be your triumph and your goal: - ’Twill be the saving of your soul-- - “Let him go!” - -Mr. Hawkins, whom I have quoted, entitled his book _Chords and -Discords_. What did he mean by “discords”? Perhaps a disparagement of -his muse’s efforts at music. Perhaps, and rather, something in the -content, for the contrasts are sharp, the tones are piercing. These -“discords” abound in contemporary Negro verse. Between the octave and -the sestet of the following sonnet, by Mrs. Carrie W. Clifford, the -discord is of the kind that stabs you: - -AN EASTER MESSAGE - - Now quivering to life, all nature thrills - At the approach of that triumphant queen, - Pink-fingered Easter, trailing robes of green - Tunefully o’er the flower-embroidered hills, - Her hair perfumed of myriad daffodils: - Upon her swelling bosom now are seen - The dream-frail lilies with their snowy sheen, - As lightly she o’erleaps the spring-time rills. - To black folk choked within the deadly grasp - Of racial hate, what message does she bring - Of resurrection and the hope of spring? - Assurance their death-stupor is a mask-- - A sleep, with elements potential, rife, - Ready to burst full-flowered into life. - -The Negro’s deep resentment of his wrongs has found its most artistic -expression in the verse of a poet who came to us from Jamaica--Mr. -Claude McKay. In another chapter I have given the reader an opportunity -to judge of his merits. He will be represented here by a sonnet, -written, I believe, shortly after the race-riot in the national capital, -July, 1919. It has been widely reprinted in the Negro newspapers. - -IF WE MUST DIE - - If we must die, let it not be like hogs - Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, - While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, - Making their mock at our accursed lot. - If we must die--oh, let us nobly die, - So that our precious blood may not be shed - In vain; then even the monsters we defy - Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead! - - Oh, kinsmen! We must meet the common foe; - Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave, - And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow. - What though before us lies the open grave? - Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, - Pressed to the wall, dying, but--fighting back! - -Race consciousness has recently attained an extraordinary pitch in the -Negro, and there seems to be no prospect of any abatement. The -verse-smiths one and all have borne witness to a feeling of great -intensity on all subjects pertaining to their race--the discriminations -and injustices practised against it, the limitations that would be -imposed upon it, the contumelies that would offend it. Ardent appeals -are therefore made to race pride and ardent exhortations to race unity. -The ancient rôle of the poet whereby he is identified with the prophet -is being resumed by the enkindled souls of black men. With their natural -gift for music and eloquence, with their increasing culture, with their -building up of a poetic tradition now in process, with this -intensification of race consciousness, almost anything may be expected -of the Negro in another generation. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -MISCELLANEOUS POEMS - - -_I. Eulogistic_ - -[Illustration: MAE SMITH JOHNSON] - -Altogether admirable is the disposition of Negro verse-writers to -eulogize the notable personages of their race, the men and women who -have blazed the trail of advance. The mention of Attucks, Black Sampson, -Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and others like these, all practically -unknown to white readers, is frequent, and reverential odes and sonnets -to Douglass, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Washington, Dunbar, are many and -enthusiastic. Here as elsewhere, however, I refrain from giving mere -titles and from comments on productions merely cited. The reader will -find such poems as I allude to in every poet’s volume. I refer to this -body of eulogistic verse only to suggest to the reader who takes up the -writings of the American Negroes that he will learn that they have a -heritage of heroic traditions from which poetry springs in every race. - -Instead of giving here such specimens of poetic eulogy as I have alluded -to, however, I shall give a few poems of a more general significance, -poems of appeal or tribute to the entire black race or poems of -affectionate tribute to individuals. A free-verse poem entitled “The -Negro,” by Mr. Langston Hughes, on page 200, may be recalled. Here is a -sonnet with the same title, by Mr. McKay, which appeared in _The -People’s Pilot_, published in Richmond, Va.: - -THE NEGRO - - Think ye I am not fiend and savage too? - Think ye I could not arm me with a gun - And shoot down ten of you for every one - Of my black brothers murdered, burnt by you? - Be not deceived, for every deed ye do - I could match--outmatch: am I not Afric’s son, - Black of that black land where black deeds are done? - But the Almighty from the darkness drew - My soul and said: Even thou shalt be a light - Awhile to burn on the benighted earth; - Thy dusky face I set among the white - For thee to prove thyself of highest worth; - Before the world is swallowed up in night, - To show thy little lamp; go forth, go forth! - -From another Virginia magazine, also now defunct, _The Praiseworthy -Muse_, of Norfolk, I take the following poem, signed by John J. Fenner, -Jr.: - -RISE! YOUNG NEGRO--RISE! - - Ho! we from slumber wake! - Rise! young Negro--rise! - Begin our daily task anew-- - Thank God we’re spared to-- - Rise! young Negro--rise! - - Thy task may be an humble one. - Rise! young Negro--rise! - However great, however small, - Honesty and respect for all-- - Rise! young Negro--rise! - - Each has a race to run. - Rise! young Negro--rise! - Enter now while we’re young, - Though weak and just begun. - Rise! young Negro--rise! - - Our banner flown will some day read: - Rise! young Negro--rise! - Victory’s ours! We’ve won the race. - Then let us live in God by grace. - Rise! young Negro--rise! - -In spirit and in form both these productions seem to be quite -noteworthy. The first has in it something darkly and terribly ominous, -while the second has all the fervor of religion in its youth. The class -of poems to follow will afford a contrast. They will bear witness to -that pride of race, perhaps, which we of the white race have commended -to the colored people: - -DAYBREAK - - Awake! Arise! Men of my race-- - I see our morning star, - And feel the dawn breeze on my face - Creep inward from afar. - - I feel the dawn, with soft-like tread, - Steal through our lingering night, - Aglow with flame our sky to spread - In floods of morning light. - - Arise, my men! Be wide-awake - To hear the bugle call - For Negroes everywhere to break - The bands that bind us all. - - Great Lincoln, now with glory graced, - All Godlike with the pen, - Our chattel fetters broke and placed - Us in the ranks of men. - - But even he could not awake - The dead, nor make alive, - Nor change stern Nature’s laws, which make - The fittest to survive. - - Let every man his soul inure - In noblest sacrifice, - And with a heart of oak endure - Ignoble, arrant prejudice. - - Endurance, love, will yet prevail - Against all laws of hate; - Such armaments can never fail - Our race its best estate. - - Let none make common cause with sin, - Be that in honor bound, - For they who fight with God must win - On every battleground. - - Though wrongs there are, and wrongs have been, - And wrongs we still must face, - We have more friends than foes within - The Anglo-Saxon race. - - In spite of all the Babel cries - Of those who rage and shout, - God’s silent forces daily rise - To bring his will about. - _George Marion McClellan._ - -THE NEGRO WOMAN - - Were it mine to select a woman - As queen of the hall of fame; - One who has fought the gamest fight - And climbed from the depths of shame; - I would have to give the sceptre - To the lowliest of them all; - She, who has struggled through the years, - With her back against the wall. - - Wronged by the men of an alien race, - Deserted by those of her own; - With a prayer in her heart, a song on her lips - She has carried the fight alone. - In spite of the snares all around her; - Her marvelous pluck has prevailed - And kept her home together-- - When even her men have failed. - - What of her sweet, simple nature? - What of her natural grace? - Her richness and fullness of color, - That adds to the charm of her face? - Is there a woman more shapely? - More vigorous, loving and true? - Yea, wonderful Negro woman - The honor I’d give to you. - _Andrea Razafkeriefo._ - -THE NEGRO CHILD - - My little one of ebon hue, - My little one with fluffy hair, - The wide, wide world is calling you - To think and do and dare. - - The lessons of stern yesterdays - That stir your blood and poise your brain - Are etching out the simple ways - By which you must attain. - - An echo here, a memory there, - An act that links itself with truth; - A vision that makes troubles air - And toils the joy of youth. - - These be your food, your drink, your rest, - These be your moods of drudgeful ease, - For these be nature’s spur and test - And heaven’s fair decrees. - - My little one of ebon hue, - My little one with fluffy hair, - Go train your head and hands to do, - Your head and heart to dare. - _Joseph S. Cotter, Sr._ - -THE MOTHER - - The mother soothes her mantled child - With plaintive melody, and wild; - A deep compassion brims her eye - And stills upon her lips the sigh. - - Her thoughts are leaping down the years, - O’er branding bars, through seething tears: - Her heart is sandaling his feet - Adown the world’s corroding street. - - Then, with a start, she dons a smile, - His tender yearnings to beguile; - And only God will ever know - The wordless measure of her woe. - _Georgia Douglas Johnson._ - -The foregoing poems are generic in character, the following, specific. -And yet there is much in these also that is typical and universal: - -TO A NEGRO MOTHER - - I hear you croon a little lullaby, - I see you press his little lips to yours, - Again old scenes come to my memory, - As if Love’s stream had gained the long lost shores; - As if the tidal wave of human good - Had thrown o’er me the mantle of control; - As if the beauty of true motherhood - Had gained the premise of my common soul. - - The poet’s heart is yet within your breast, - The captain’s sword unconsciously you wield; - You know the sculptor’s masterpiece the best, - Thro’ you the master painter is revealed. - In you there dwells the Race’s latent power-- - The power to make, the power to break apart; - The power to lift, the power again to lower - That burnished shield that guards the Race’s heart. - - And am I speaking as in hapless rhymes - Of things at least that may not come to pass? - Or is it not the spirit of the times - All things that savour power to amass? - Canst thou not see within thine own pure soul - That which thy Race and all the world awaits, - The master-leader who will reach the goal - And hew with sword of flame the city gates? - - O Negro mother, from the dust arise, - Take up your task with grace and fortitude, - Knowing the goal is not the azure skies, - But here, and now, for thine own Race’s good. - Create anew the captains of the past; - Build in your soul the Ethiopian power, - That when the mighty quest is gained at last, - O Negro mother, fame shall be your dower. - _Ben E. Burrell._ - -TO MY GRANDMOTHER - - You ’mind me of the winter’s eve - When low the sinking sun - Casts soft bright rays upon the snow - And day, now almost done, - In silence deep prepares to leave, - And calmly waits the signal “Go.” - - Your eyes are faded vestal lights - That once the hearth illumed, - Where vestal virgins vigil kept, - And budding virtue bloomed: - Like stars that beam on summer nights, - Your eyes, by joy and sorrow swept. - - Asleep, one night, an angel kissed - Your hair and on the morn - The raven threads were silv’ry gray; - The angel fair had borne - Your youth away ere it you missed - And left old age to bless your way. - - Smile on, for when you smile, it seems - I cannot do a wrong; - Your smiles go with me all the while - And make life one sweet song; - And oft at night my troubled dream - Grows gay at thoughts of your bright smile. - - Dark Africa with Caucasian blood - To tinge your veins combined, - Your proud head bowed to slavery’s thrall, - Your hands to toil consigned. - The Lord of hosts becalmed the flood, - The God Omnipotent o’er all. - - Your ears have heard the din of war, - The martial tramp of feet, - Your voice has risen to your God - In supplications sweet. - May angels kiss each furrowed scar - Upon your brow where care has trod. - - God bless the hands all withered now - By age and weary care. - God rest the feet that sought the way - To freedom bright and fair. - God bless thy life and e’er endow - Thee with new strength each new-born day. - _Mae Smith Johnson._ - -EBON MAID AND GIRL OF MINE - - The sweetest charm of all the earth - Came into being with her birth. - All that without her we would lack - She is in purity and black. - - The pansy and the violet, - The dark of all the flowers met - And gave their wealth of color in - The sable beauty of her skin. - - Glad winds of evening are her face, - Gentle with love and rich in grace; - The blazing splendors of her eyes - Are jewels from the midnight skies. - - Her hair--the darkness caught and curled, - The ancient wonder of the world-- - Seems, in its strange, uncertain length, - A constant crown of queenly strength. - - Her smile, it is the rising moon, - The waking of a night in June; - Her teeth are tips of white, they gleam - Like starlight in a happy dream. - - Her laughter is a Christmas bell - Of “peace on earth and all is well!” - Her voice--it is the dearest part - Of all the glory in her heart. - - The height of joy, the deep of tears, - The surging passion of the years, - The mystery and dark of things, - We feel their meanings when she sings. - - Her thoughts are pure and every one - But makes her good to look upon. - Daughter of God! you are divine, - O, Ebon Maid and Girl of Mine! - _Lucian B. Watkins._ - -I will conclude this section with a very well rhymed tribute to two -Negro bards between whom there was a friendship and a correspondence -similar to that which existed between Burns and Lapraik. The writer, -James Edgar French, was a native of Kentucky, studied for the ministry, -and died early: - -DUNBAR AND COTTER - - Dunbar and Cotter! foster-brothers, ye, - Nurst at the breast of heav’nly minstrelsy! - The first two Negroes who have dared to climb - Parnassus’ mount, and carve your names in rhyme; - Who, over icy walls of prejudice, - Where twice ten thousand gorgon monsters hiss, - Did scale the peak and make the steep ascent; - For which great feat ye had small precedent. - There were who said: “The Negro is not fit - To write good prose, much less to rhyme with wit”; - That nothing ever Negroes could inspire - With Spenser’s fancy or with Shakespere’s fire: - With Dryden’s vigor, with the ease of Pope, - To weave the iambic pentametric rope, - But ye, immortal sons of Afric, ye - Have proved these charges gross absurdity; - That old Dame Nature’s no respecter in - Regard to person or the hue of skin. - Omnific God, at whose fiatic hand - Did primogenial light deluge the land; - Whose word supreme did out of chaos draw - A world, and order made its guiding law, - Bequeath’d like talents to the black and white; - To read form’d some and others made to write; - To govern these, and those to governed be, - And you, great twain, endued with poesy! - _James Edgar French._ - - -_II. Commemorative and Occasional_ - -From this body of Negro verse which I have been describing and giving -specimens of may be selected pieces commemorative of days and seasons -that are quite up to the standard of similar pieces provided for white -children in their school-readers. These selections will further -illustrate the variety of themes and emotional responses in this body -of contemporary verse. - -The first selection hardly needs any allowance to be made for it, I -think, on the score that it was written by a girl only sixteen years of -age: - -CHRISTMAS CHEER - - ’Tis Christmas time! ’Tis Christmas time! - Dear hallowed name of every clime! - How each one’s heart now happy feels, - How each one’s face fresh joy reveals - As Christmas Day is drawing near - The merriest day of all the year! - - Old spite and hate, the scowl, the sneer - Are vanquished, all, by kindly cheer, - And friendships nigh forgot and cold - Glow warm again as once of old. - Man’s worries cease, his hope returns, - His breast with love now brighter burns; - So, Christmas cheer! Oh, Christmas cheer! - A hearty welcome to you here. - - A welcome through the world where trod - The source of joy, the Son of God, - The Lowly One who from above - First warmed cold earth with gladsome love: - Who still proclaims with golden voice, - “Peace on earth! Rejoice! Rejoice!” - _Corinne E. Lewis._ - -If the reader is disposed to make comparisons he might recall, without -very great detriment to the following poem, Tennyson’s famous stanzas -on the same theme. It is in the effective manner of the poems already -given from its author: - -GOODBYE OLD YEAR - - Goodbye, Old Year. Here comes New. - You’ve done wonders; now you’re through; - Adding wisdom to the ages, - Making history’s best pages; - Rest and slumber with the sages. - Good-bye, Old Year. Welcome, New. - - Goodbye, Old Year. Welcome, New. - Off with false hopes; on with true. - Nations raise a mighty chorus, - Rich intoning, grand, sonorous, - Blithe and gladsome, sad, dolorous; - Goodbye, Old Year. Welcome, New. - Off with false hopes. On with true. - - Goodbye, Old Year. Hail the New. - Goodbye, hatreds. Wrongs, adieu. - Down Life’s lane, with high or lowly, - Weak, or strong, sin-cursed, or holy, - Time is reaping--trudging slowly. - Goodbye, Old Year. Hail the New. - Goodbye, hatreds. Wrongs, adieu. - - Goodbye, Old Year. Come in, New. - Stout hearts look for light to you. - Rising hopes new scenes are staging; - Brotherhood our thoughts engaging. - Dreams of Peace hide battle raging. - Goodbye, Old Year. Come in, New. - Stout hearts fondly look to you. - _Joshua Henry Jones, Jr._ - -The remainder of the series will be given without comment: - -THE MONTHS - -January - - To herald in another year, - With rhythmic note the snowflakes fall - Silently from their crystal courts, - To answer Winter’s call. - Wake, mortal! Time is winged anew! - Call Love and Hope and Faith to fill - The chambers of thy soul to-day; - Life hath its blessings still! - -February - - The icicles upon the pane - Are busy architects; they leave - What temples and what chiseled forms - Of leaf and flower! Then believe - That though the woods be brown and bare, - And sunbeams peep through cloudy veils, - Though tempests howl through leaden skies, - The springtime never fails! - -March - - Robin! Robin! call the Springtime! - March is halting on his way; - Hear the gusts. What! snowflakes falling! - Look not for the grass to-day. - Ay, the wind will frisk and play, - And we cannot say it nay. - -April - - She trips across the meadows, - The weird, capricious elf! - The buds unfold their perfumed cups - For love of her sweet self; - And silver-throated birds begin to tune their lyres, - While wind-harps lend their strains to Nature’s magic choirs. - -May - - Sweet, winsome May, coy, pensive, fay, - Comes garlanded with lily-bells, - And apple blooms shed incense through the bow’r, - To be her dow’r; - While through the leafy dells - A wondrous concert swells - To welcome May, the dainty fay. - -June - - Roses, roses, roses, - Creamy, fragrant, dewy! - See the rainbow shower! - Was there e’er so sweet a flower? - I’m the rose-nymph, June they call me. - Sunset’s blush is not more fair - Than the gift of bloom so rare, - Mortal, that I bring to thee! - -July - - Sunshine and shadow play amid the trees - In bosky groves, while from the vivid sky - The sun’s gold arrows fleck the fields at noon, - Where weary cattle to their slumber hie. - How sweet the music of the purling rill, - Trickling adown the grassy hill! - While dreamy fancies come to give repose - When the first star of evening glows. - -August - - Haste to the mighty ocean, - List to the lapsing waves; - With what a strange commotion - They seek their coral caves. - From heat and turmoil let us oft return, - The ocean’s solemn majesty to learn. - -September - - With what a gentle sound - The autumn leaves drop to the ground; - The many-colored dyes, - They greet our watching eyes. - Rosy and russet, how they fall! - Throwing o’er earth a leafy pall. - -October - - The mellow moon hangs golden in the sky, - The vintage song is over, far and nigh - A richer beauty Nature weareth now, - And silently, in reverence we bow - Before the forest altars, off’ring praise - To Him who sweetness gives to all our days. - -November - - The leaves are sere, - The woods are drear, - The breeze, that erst so merrily did play, - Naught giveth save a melancholy lay; - Yet life’s great lessons do not fail - E’en in November’s gale. - -December - - List! List! the sleigh bells peal across the snow; - The frost’s sharp arrows touch the earth and lo! - How diamond-bright the stars do scintillate - When Night hath lit her lamps to Heaven’s gate. - To the dim forest’s cloistered arches go, - And seek the holly and the mistletoe; - For soon the bells of Christmas-tide will ring - To hail the Heavenly King! - _H. Cordelia Ray._ - -WHILE APRIL BREEZES BLOW - -(A Song for Arbor Day.) - - Come, let us plant a tree today-- - Forsake your book, forsake your play, - Bring out the spade and hie away - While April breezes blow. - - Your life is young, and it should be - As full of vigor as this tree, - As fair, as upright and as free, - While April breezes blow. - - Come, let us plant a tree to stand - Both fair and useful in the land, - Supremely tall and nobly grand - A strong and trusty oak. - - Dig deep and let the long roots hold - A firm embrace within the mold: - And may your life in truth unfold - A strong and trusty oak. - - Come, let us plant a supple ash, - A tree to bend when others crash, - And stand when vivid lightnings flash, - And clouds pour down the rain: - - So while we plant we’ll learn to bend - And hold our ground, tho’ storms descend - Throughout our life, and lightnings rend, - And clouds pour down the rain. - - Then let us plant these trees between - A graceful spruce in living green, - That e’en in winter days is seen - Like changeless springtime still: - - And so may you as years go by, - And winter comes and snowflakes fly, - Be yet in heart, and mind and eye, - Like changeless springtime still. - - Bring out the spade and hie away, - And let us plant a tree today - While skies are bright and hearts are gay, - And April breezes blow. - - In other days ’neath April skies, - Around this tree may joyful cries - And happy children’s songs arise, - While April breezes blow. - _D. T. Williamson._ - -A NATION’S GREATNESS - - What makes a nation truly great? - Not strength of arms, nor men of state, - Nor vast domains, by conquest won, - That knew not rise nor set of sun; - Nor sophist’s schools, nor learned clan, - Nor laws that bind the will of man,-- - For these have proved, in ages past, - But futile dreams that could not last; - And they that boast of such today, - Are fallen, vanquished in the fray, - Their glory mingled with the dust, - Their archives stained with crime and lust; - And all that breathed of pomp and pride, - Like the untimely fig, has died. - One thing, alone, restrains, exalts - A nation and corrects its faults; - One thing, alone, its life can crown - And give its destiny renown. - That nation, then, is truly great, - That lives by love, and not by hate; - That bends beneath the chastening rod, - That owns the truth, and looks to God! - _Edwin Garnett Riley._ - -THANKSGIVING - - My heart gives thanks for many things-- - For strength to labor day by day, - For sleep that comes when darkness wings - With evening up the eastern way. - I give deep thanks that I’m at peace - With kith and kin and neighbors, too; - Dear Lord, for all last year’s increase, - That helped me strive and hope and do. - - My heart gives thanks for many things; - I know not how to name them all. - My soul is free from frets and stings, - My mind from creed and doctrine’s thrall. - For sun and stars, for flowers and streams, - For work and hope and rest and play, - For empty moments given to dreams-- - For these my heart gives thanks today. - _William Stanley Braithwaite._ - -I will conclude this anthology with a selection from our Madagascar -poet, Andrea Razafkeriefo, which, in a happy strain, conveys a very good -philosophy of life--which is especially the Afro-American’s: - -RAINY DAYS - - On rainy days I don’t despair, - But slip into my rocking chair; - With my old pipe and volume rare - And wade in fiction deep. - The pitter-patter of the rain - Upon the roof and window pane - Comes like a lullaby’s refrain, - Till soon I’m fast asleep. - - I’m grateful for the rainy days: - ’Tis only then my fancy plays, - And mem’ry wanders back and strays - O’er paths I loved so dear. - The lightning’s flash, the thunder’s peal - Convinces me that God is real; - And it’s a wondrous thing to feel - That he is really near. - -Of the manifold and immense significance of poetry as a form of -spiritual expression the Negro American has lately become profoundly -aware, as this presentation must amply reveal. Not only the industrial -arts are the objects of his ambition, according to the far-looking -doctrine of Tuskegee, but as well those arts which are born of and -express the spiritual traits of mankind, the fine arts--music, painting, -sculpture, dramatics, and poetry. In them all the Negro is winning -distinction. In consequence it would seem that there must dawn upon us, -shaped by the poems of this collection, a new vision of the Negro and a -new appreciation of his spiritual qualities, his human character. A -profounder human sympathy with a greatly hampered, handicapped, and -humiliated people must also ensue from such considerations as these -poems will induce. One of the poets here represented cries out, as if -from a calvary, “We come slow-struggling up the hills of Hell.” Another, -in milder but not less appealing tone, cries: “We climb the slopes of -life with throbbing hearts.” - -This appeal, expressed or implicit throughout the entire range of -present-day Negro verse, an appeal sometimes angrily, sometimes -plaintively uttered, an appeal to mankind for fundamental justice and -for human fellowship on the broad basis of kinship of spirit, may -fittingly be the final note of this anthology: - -_We climb the slopes of life with throbbing hearts._ - - - - -INDEX OF AUTHORS INDEX OF AUTHORS, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND -BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES - - - ALLEN, J. MORD.--Born, Montgomery, Ala., March 26, 1875. Schooling - ceased in the middle of high-school. Since seventeen years of age a - boiler-maker. Home, St. Louis, Mo. Authorship: _Rhymes, Tales and - Rhymed Tales_, Crane and Company, Topeka, Kas., 1906. 48-50, - 223-226. - - ALLEN, WINSTON.--230. - - BAILEY, WILLIAM EDGAR.--Born, Salisbury, Mo. Educated in the - Salisbury public schools. Authorship: _The Firstling_, 1914. 65-67, - 213-214. - - BELL, JAMES MADISON.--Born, Gallipolis, Ohio, 1826. Educated in - night schools after reaching manhood. Prominent anti-slavery - orator, friend of John Browne. _Poetical Works_, with biography by - Bishop B. W. Arnett, 1901. 32-37. - - BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY.--Born, Boston, Mass., 1878. Mainly - self-educated. His three books of original verse are: _Lyrics of - Life and Love_, 1904; _The House of Falling Leaves_, 1908; _Sandy - Star and Willie Gee_, 1922. In _Who’s Who_. 105-109, 263. - - BURRELL, BENJAMIN EBENEZER.--Born, Manchester Mountains, Jamaica, - 1892. Descended from Mandingo kings on his father’s side, and on - his mother’s from Cromantees and Scotch. Contributor to _The - Crusader_ and other magazines. 249-250. - - CARMICHAEL, WAVERLEY TURNER.--Born, Snow Hill, Ala. Educated in - the Snow Hill Institute and Harvard Summer School. Authorship: - _From the Heart of a Folk_, The Cornhill Company, Boston, 1918. 53, - 219-220. - - CLIFFORD, CARRIE W.--Born, Chillicothe, Ohio. Educated at Columbus, - O. Has done much editorial and club work. Authorship: _The Widening - Light_, Walter Reid Co., Boston, 1922. 240. - - CONNER, CHARLES H.--Born, Grafton, N. Y., 1864. Father, a slave who - found freedom by way of the underground railway. Mainly - self-educated. Worker in the ship-yards, Philadelphia. Authorship: - _The Enchanted Valley_, published by himself, 1016 S. Cleveland - Ave., Philadelphia, 1917; contributor to magazines. 209-213. - - CORBETT, MAURICE NATHANIEL.--Born, Yanceyville, N. C., 1859. - Educated in the common schools and Shaw University. Served in North - Carolina Legislature. Delegate to numerous political conventions. - Clerk in Census Bureau, then in the Government Printing Office, - Washington, D. C., until stricken with paralysis in 1919. - Authorship: _The Harp of Ethiopia_, Nashville, 1914. This is an - epic poem of about 7,500 rhymed lines, narrating the entire history - of the Negro in America. It is a noteworthy undertaking. - - CORROTHERS, JAMES DAVID.--Born, Michigan, 1869. Educated at - Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., and at Bennett College, - Greensboro, N. C., Minister of the Zion Methodist Episcopal Church. - Died, 1919. Books: _Selected Poems_, 1907; _The Dream and the - Song_, 1914. 37, 85-89. - - COTTER, JOSEPH SEAMON, JR.--Born, Louisville, Ky., 1895. Died, - 1919. Books: _The Band of Gideon_, Cornhill Company, 1918; another - volume of poems now in press. 67-68, 70, 80-84. - - COTTER, JOSEPH SEAMON, SR.--Born, Bardstown, Ky., 1861. Educated in - Louisville night school (10 months). Now school principal in - Louisville, member of many societies, author of several books: _A - Rhyming_, 1895; _Links of Friendship_, 1898; _Caleb, the - Degenerate_, 1903; _A White Song and a Black One_, 1909; _Negro - Tales_, 1912. In _Who’s Who_. 52, 70-80, 220-221, 248-249. - - DANDRIDGE, RAYMOND GARFIELD.--Born, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1882. - Educated in Cincinnati grammar and high schools. First devoted to - drawing and painting until paralytic stroke, 1911. Authorship: _The - Poet and Other Poems_, Cincinnati, 1920. 54, 169-173, 221-223. - - DETT, R. NATHANIEL.--Born of Virginia parents at Drummondsville, - Ontario, Canada, October 11, 1882; studied in various colleges and - conservatories in Canada and the United States. Director of music - at Lane College, Mississippi, Lincoln Institute, Missouri, and at - Hampton Institute, Virginia, his present position. 214-217. - - DUBOIS, W. E. BURGHARDT.--Born, Great Barrington, Mass., 1868. - Education: Fisk University, A. B.; Harvard, A. B., A. M., and Ph. - D.; Berlin. Professor of economics and history in Atlanta - University, 1896-1910. Now editor of _The Crisis_, New York, Books: - _The Souls of Black Folk_, 1903; _Darkwater_, 1919, and numerous - others. In _Who’s Who_. 201-205. - - DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE.--1872-1906. 37, 38-48. - - DUNBAR-NELSON, ALICE RUTH MOORE (née).--Born, New Orleans, 1875. - Education: in New Orleans public schools and Straight University, - and later in several northern universities. Taught in New Orleans, - Washington, and Brooklyn, and other cities. Married Paul Laurence - Dunbar, 1898. At present Managing Editor of Philadelphia and - Wilmington _Advocate_. Books: _Violets and Other Tales_, New - Orleans, 1894; _The Goodness of St. Rocque_, Dodd, Mead & Co., - 1899; _Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence_, 1913; _The Dunbar Speaker - and Entertainer_, 1920. Contributor to numerous magazines. 144-148. - - DUNGEE, ROSCOE RILEY.--58. - - ESTE, CHARLES H.--57. - - FAUSET, MISS JESSIE.--Born, Philadelphia. Education: A. B., - Cornell, Phi Beta Kappa; A. M., University of Pennsylvania; student - of the Guilde Internationale, Paris. Interpreter of the Second - Pan-African Congress. Literary Editor of _The Crisis_. 160-162. - - FENNER, JOHN J., JR.--245. - - FISHER, LELAND MILTON.--Born, Humboldt, Tenn., 1875. Died, under - thirty years of age, at Evansville, Ind., where he edited a - newspaper. Left behind an unpublished volume of poems. 189-190. - - FLEMING, MRS. SARAH LEE BROWN.--_Clouds and Sunshine_, The Cornhill - Company, Boston, 1920. - - FRENCH, JAMES EDGAR.--Born in Kentucky, studied for the ministry, - died young. 253-254. - - GRIMKÉ, MISS ANGELINA WELD.--Born, Boston, Mass., 1880. Educated in - various schools of several states, including the Girls’ Latin - School of Boston and the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. Now - teacher of English in the Dunbar High School, Washington, D. C. - Authorship: _Rachel_, a prose drama, Cornhill Co., Boston, 1921; - poems and short stories uncollected. 152-156. - - GRIMKÉ, MRS. CHARLOTTE FORTEN.--Born, Philadelphia, 1837 (née - Forten). Educated in the Normal School at Salem, Mass. She was a - contributor to various magazines, including _The Atlantic Monthly_ - and _The New England Magazine_. Poems uncollected. 155-156. - - HAMMON, JUPITER.--Born, c. 1720. “The first member of the Negro - race to write and publish poetry in this country.” Extant poems: - _An Evening Thought_, 1760; _An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley_, - 1778; _A Poem for Children with Thoughts on Death_, 1782; _The Kind - Master and the Dutiful Servant_ (date unknown.) These are included - in Oscar Wegelin’s _Jupiter Hammon, American Negro Poet_, New York, - 1915. 20-21, 23. - - HAMMOND, MRS. J. W.--Home, Omaha, Neb. Occupation: Trained nurse. - 142-144. - - HARPER, MRS. FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS (née).--Born, Baltimore, Md., of - free parents, 1825. Died, Philadelphia, 1911. Educated in a school - in Baltimore for free colored children, and by her uncle, William - Watkins. Married Fenton Harper, 1860. From about 1851 devoted - herself to the cause of freedom for the slaves. Authorship: _Poems - on Miscellaneous Subjects_, Philadelphia, 1857; _Poems_, - Philadelphia, 1900. 26-32. - - HARRIS, LEON R.--Born, Cambridge, Ohio, 1886. First years spent in - an orphanage, where he got the rudiments of education. Then was - farmed out in Kentucky. Running off, he made his way to Berea - College and later to Tuskegee, getting two or three terms at each. - Now editor of the Richmond (Indiana) Blade. Authorship: numerous - short stories in magazines; _The Steel Makers and Other War Poems_ - (pamphlet), 1918. 63-64, 180-184. - - HAWKINS, WALTER EVERETTE.--Born, Warrenton, N. C., 1886. Educated - in public schools. Since 1913 in the city post-office of Washington - D. C. Authorship: _Chords and Discords_, Richard G. Badger, Boston, - 1920. 62, 119, 126, 234-235, 240. - - HILL, LESLIE PINCKNEY.--Born, Lynchburg, Va., 1880. B. A. and M. A. - of Harvard. Teacher at Tuskegee; formerly principal of Manassas - (Va.) Industrial School; now principal of Cheyney (Pa.) State - Normal School. Authorship: _The Wings of Oppression_, The Stratford - Company, Boston, 1921. 52, 131-138. - - HORTON, GEORGE M.--Born, North Carolina. Authorship: _Poems by a - Slave_, 1829. _Poetical Works_, 1845. Several volumes from 1829 to - 1865. 25. - - HUGHES, JAMES C.--187-189. - - HUGHES, LANGSTON.--Born, Joplin, Mo., February 1, 1902. Ancestry, - Negro and Indian; grand-nephew of Congressman John M. Langston. - Education: High School, Cleveland, O., one year at Columbia - University; traveled in Mexico and Central America. Contributor to - magazines. Home, Jones’s Point, N. Y. Contributor to _The Crisis_. - 199-201. - - JAMISON, ROSCOE C.--Born, Winchester, Tenn., 1886; died at Phœnix, - Ariz., 1918. Educated at Fisk University. Authorship: _Negro - Soldiers and Other Poems_, William F. McNeil, South St. Joseph, - Mo., 1918. 191-195. - - JESSYE, MISS EVA ALBERTA.--Born, Coffeyville, Kan., 1897. Educated - in the public schools of several western states; graduated from - Western University, 1914. Director of music in Morgan College, - Baltimore, 1919. Now teacher of piano, Muskogee, Okla. 68-69, - 139-142. - - JOHNSON, ADOLPHUS.--_The Silver Chord_, Philadelphia, 1915. - 104-105. - - JOHNSON, CHARLES BERTRAM.--Born, Callao, Mo., 1880. Educated at - Western College, Macon, Mo.; two summers at Lincoln Institute; - correspondence courses, and a term in the University of Chicago. - Educator and preacher. Authorship: _Wind Whisperings_ (a pamphlet), - 1900; _The Mantle of Dunbar and Other Poems_ (a pamphlet), 1918; - _Songs of My People_, 1918. Home, Moberly, Mo. 52, 63, 95-99. - - JOHNSON, FENTON.--Born, Chicago, 1888. Educated in the public - schools and University of Chicago. Authorship: _A Little Dreaming_, - Chicago, 1914; _Visions of the Dusk_, New York, 1915. _Songs of the - Soil_, New York, 1916. Editor of _The Favorite Magazine_, Chicago. - 64-65, 99-103. - - JOHNSON, MRS. GEORGIA DOUGLAS.--Born, Atlanta, Ga. Educated at - Atlanta University, and in music at Oberlin. Home, Washington, D. - C. Books: _The Heart of a Woman_, the Cornhill Co., Boston, 1918; - _Bronze_, B. J. Brimmer Co., Boston, 1922. 61, 148-152, 232-233, - 249. - - JOHNSON, JAMES WELDON.--Born, Jacksonville, Fla., 1871. Educated at - Atlanta and Columbia Universities. United States consul in - Venezuela and Nicaragua. Author of numerous works. Original verse: - _Fifty Years and Other Poems_, the Cornhill Company, Boston, 1917. - In _Who’s Who_. 54, 90-95, 226-227, 235-236. - - JOHNSON, MRS. MAE SMITH (née).--Born, Alexandria, Va., 1890. Now - Secretary at the Good Samaritan Orphanage, Newark, N. J. - Contributor of verse to papers and magazines. The grandmother of - the poet escaped from slavery in Virginia. She lived to be - ninety-two years old. 57, 251-252. - - JONES, EDWARD SMYTHE.--Authorship: _The Sylvan Cabin and Other - Verse_, Sherman, French & Co., Boston, 1911. 163-169. - - JONES, JOSHUA HENRY, JR.--Born, Orangeburg, S. C., 1876. Educated - Central High School, Columbus, O., Ohio State University, Yale, and - Brown. Has served on the editorial staffs of the Providence _News_, - The Worcester _Evening Post_, Boston _Daily Advertiser_ and Boston - _Post_. At present he is on the staff of the Boston _Telegram_. - Authorship: _The Heart of the World_, the Stratford Company, - Boston, 1919; _Poems of the Four Seas_, the Cornhill Company, - Boston, 1921. 113-119, 234, 256-257. - - JONES, TILFORD.--231-232. - - JORDAN, W. CLARENCE.--190-191. - - JORDAN, WINIFRED VIRGINIA.--Contributor to _The Crisis_. 56. - - LEE, MARY EFFIE.--Contributor to _The Crisis_. 56. - - LEWIS, CORINNE E.--Student in the Dunbar High School, Washington, - D. C. 255. - - LEWIS, ETHYL.--60-61. - - MCCLELLAN, GEORGE MARION.--Born, Belfast, Tenn., 1860. Educated at - Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., of which he became financial - agent. Later, principal of the Paul Dunbar School, Louisville, Ky. - Authorship: _The Path of Dreams_, John P. Morton, Louisville, Ky., - 1916. 55, 173-179, 246-247. - - MCKAY, CLAUDE.--Born, Jamaica, 1889. Has resided in the United - States ten or eleven years. Till lately on the editorial staff of - the _Liberator_. Books: _Constab Ballads_, London, 1912; _Spring - in New Hampshire_, London, 1920. 126-131, 241-242, 244. - - MARGETSON, GEORGE REGINALD.--Born, 1877, at St. Kitts, B. W. I. - 109-111. - - MEANS, STERLING M.--Authorship: _The Deserted Cabin and Other - Poems_, A. B. Caldwell, publisher, Atlanta, 1915. 222-223. - - MILLER, KELLY.--Born, Winsboro, S. C., 1863. Educated at Howard and - Johns Hopkins Universities. Degrees: A. M. and LL. D. Professor and - dean in Howard University. Books: _Race Adjustment_, 1904; _Out of - the House of Bondage_, Neale Publishing Co., New York, 1914. In - _Who’s Who_. 206-209. - - MOORE, WILLIAM.--Contributor to _The Favorite Magazine_. 111-112. - - RAY, H. CORDELIA.--Authorship: _Poems_, The Grafton Press, New - York, 1910. 257-260. - - RAZAFKERIEFO, ANDREA.--Born, Washington, D. C., 1895, of - Afro-American mother and Madagascaran father. Educated only in - public elementary school. Regular verse contributor to _The - Crusader_ and _The Negro World_. 197-198, 247-248, 263-264. - - REASON, CHARLES L.--Born in New York in 1818. Professor at New York - Central College in New York and head of the Institute for Colored - Youth in Philadelphia. Authorship: _Freedom_, New York, 1847. - 23-24. - - RILEY, EDWIN GARNETT.--Contributor to many newspapers and - magazines. 262. - - SEXTON, WILL.--Contributor to magazines. 197, 233-234. - - SHACKELFORD, OTIS.--Educated at Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, - Mo. Authorship: _Seeking the Best_ (prose and verse). The verse - part of this volume contains a poem of some 500 lines entitled - “Bits of History in Verse, or A Dream of Freedom Realized,” modeled - on _Hiawatha_. - - SHACKELFORD, THEODORE HENRY.--Born, Windsor Canada, 1888. - Grandparents were slaves in southern states. At twelve years of age - had had only three terms of school. At twenty-one entered the - Industrial Training School, Downington, Pa., and graduated four - years later. Studied a while at the Philadelphia Art Museum. - Authorship: _My Country and Other Poems_, Philadelphia, 1918. Died, - Jamaica, N. Y., February 5, 1923. 228. - - SPENCER, MRS. ANNE.--Born, Bramwell, W. Va., 1882. Educated at the - Virginia Seminary, Lynchburg, Va. Contributor to _The Crisis_. - 156-159. - - UNDERHILL, IRVIN W.--Born, Port Clinton, Pa., May 1, 1868. In - boyhood, with irregular schooling, assisted his father, who was - captain of a canal boat. At the age of 37 suddenly lost his sight. - Author of _Daddy’s Love and Other Poems_, Philadelphia. Home, - Philadelphia. 184-187. - - WATKINS, LUCIAN B.--Born, Chesterfield, Virginia, 1879. Educated in - public schools of Chesterfield, and at the Virginia Normal and - Industrial Institute, Petersburg. First teacher, then soldier. - Books: _Voices of Solitude_, 1907, Donohue & Co., Chicago; - _Whispering Winds_, in manuscript. Died, 1921. 59, 236-239, - 252-253. - - WATSON, ADELINE CARTER.--232. - - WHEATLEY, PHILLIS.--Born in Africa, 1753. Brought as a slave to - Boston, where she died in 1784. Many editions of her poems in her - lifetime. _Poems and Letters_, New York, 1916. 23-24. - - WIGGINS, LIDA KECK.--Authorship: _The Life and Works of Paul - Laurence Dunbar_, J. L. Nichols & Company, Naperville, Ill. 41. - - WHITMAN, ALBERY A.--Born in Kentucky in 1857. Began life as a - Methodist minister. Authorship: _The Rape of Florida_, _Not a Man - and Yet a Man_, and _Twasnita’s Seminoles_. 32, 35-36. - - WILLIAMSON, D. T.--260-261. - - WILSON, CHARLES P.--Born in Iowa of Kentucky parents, 1885. Printer - and theatrical performer. 179-180. - - - - -INDEX OF TITLES - - - PAGE - - Apology for Wayward Jim.--James C. Hughes, 188 - - Ask Me Why I Love You.--W. E. Hawkins, 125 - - A Song.--Roscoe C. Jamison, 193 - - As the Old Year Passed.--William Moore, 112 - - At the Closed Gate of Justice.--J. D. Corrothers, 88 - - At the Carnival.--Mrs. Anne Spencer, 158 - - At Niagara.--R. Nathaniel Dett, 216 - - At the Spring Dawn.--Miss Angelina W. Grimké, 154 - - Autumn Sadness.--W. S. Braithwaite, 108 - - - Band of Gideon, The.--Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., 83 - - Black Mammy, The.--J. W. Johnson, 236 - - Black Violinist, The.--Winston Allen, 230 - - Bomb Thrower, The.--Will Sexton, 197 - - Boy and the Ideal, The.--Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., 74 - - Brothers.--J. H. Jones, Jr., 118 - - - Castles in the Air.--Roscoe C. Jamison, 193 - - Christmas Cheer.--Miss Corinne E. Lewis, 255 - - Chicken in the Bread Tray.--_Folk Song_, 15 - - Compensation.--Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., 82 - - Counting Out.--J. Mord Allen, 48 - - Credo.--W. E. Hawkins, 119 - - - Dawn.--Miss Angelina W. Grimké, 153 - - Daybreak.--G. M. McClellan, 246 - - Death of Justice, The.--W. E. Hawkins, 123 - - De Innah Part.--R. G. Dandridge, 221 - - Don’t-Care Negro, The.--Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., 220 - - Dream and the Song, The.--J. D. Corrothers, 85 - - Dreams of the Dreamer, The.--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 148 - - Dunbar.--J. D. Corrothers, 37 - - Dunbar and Cotter.--J. E. French, 253 - - - Easter Message, An.--Mrs. Carrie W. Clifford, 240 - - Ebon Maid.--L. B. Watkins, 252 - - Edict, The.--Roscoe C. Jamison, 194 - - El Beso.--Miss Angelina W. Grimké, 154 - - Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes.--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 41 - - Eternity.--R. G. Dandridge, 172 - - Expectancy.--William Moore, 112 - - - Facts.--R. G. Dandridge, 172 - - Fattening Frogs for Snakes.--_Folk Song_, 117 - - Feet of Judas, The.--G. M. McClellan, 177 - - Flag of the Free.--E. W. Jones, 167 - - For You Sweetheart.--L. M. Fisher, 189 - - Foscati.--W. S. Braithwaite, 108 - - - Goodbye, Old Year.--J. H. Jones, Jr., 256 - - - Harlem Dancer, The.--Claude McKay, 128 - - Heart of the World, The.--J. H. Jones, Jr., 117 - - Hero of the Road.--W. E. Hawkins, 122 - - Hills of Sewanee, The.--G. M. McClellan, 176 - - Hopelessness.--Roscoe C. Jamison, 195 - - - If We Must Die.--Claude McKay, 241 - - In Bondage.--Claude McKay, 129 - - In Memory of Katie Reynolds.--G. M. McClellan, 178 - - In Spite of Death.--W. E. Hawkins, 62 - - In the Heart of a Rose.--G. M. McClellan, 54 - - I Played on David’s Harp.--Fenton Johnson, 65 - - I See and Am Satisfied.--Kelly Miller, 207 - - I Sit and Sew.--Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, 145 - - It’s All Through Life.--W. T. Carmichael, 53 - - It’s a Long Way.--W. S. Braithwaite, 106 - - I’ve Loved and Lost.--L. B. Watkins, 237 - - - Juba.--_Folk Song_, 16 - - - Life.--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 43 - - Life of the Spirit, The.--Charles H. Conner, 210 - - Light of Victory.--George Reginald Margetson, 110 - - Lights at Carney’s Point, The.--Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, 146 - - Litany of Atlanta, A.--W. E. B. DuBois, 202 - - Loneliness.--Miss Winifred Virginia Jordan, 56 - - Lynching, The.--Claude McKay, 128 - - - Mammy’s Baby Scared.--W. T. Carmichael, 219 - - Mater Dolorosa.--L. P. Hill, 134 - - Message to the Modern Pharaohs.--L. B. Watkins, 239 - - Months, The.--Miss H. Cordelia Ray, 257 - - Mother, The.--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 249 - - My Lady’s Lips.--J. W. Johnson, 226 - - My People.--C. B. Johnson, 95 - - Mulatto’s Song, The.--Fenton Johnson, 101 - - Mulatto to His Critics, The.--Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., 67 - - - Nation’s Greatness, A.--Edwin G. Riley, 262 - - Negro, The.--Langston Hughes, 200 - - Negro, The.--Claude McKay, 244 - - Negro Child, The.--Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., 248 - - Negro Church, The.--Andrea Razafkeriefo, 198 - - Negro Woman, The.--Andrea Razafkeriefo, 247 - - Negro Singer, The.--J. D. Corrothers, 89 - - New Day, The.--Fenton Johnson, 102 - - New Negro, The.--Will Sexton, 197 - - New Negro, The.--L. B. Watkins, 236 - - - Octoroon, The.--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 151 - - Ode to Ethiopia.--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 44 - - Oh, My Way and Thy Way.--Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., 81 - - Old Plantation Grave, The.--S. M. Means, 222 - - Ole Deserted Cabin, De.--S. M. Means, 223 - - Old Friends.--C. B. Johnson, 97 - - Old Jim Crow.--Anonymous, 231 - - Optimist, The.--Mrs. J. W. Hammond, 143 - - Oriflamme.--Miss Jessie Fauset, 162 - - O Southland.--J. W. Johnson, 92 - - - Peace.--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 61 - - Plaint of the Factory Child, The.--Fenton Johnson, 101 - - Poet, The.--R. G. Dandridge, 170 - - Prayer of the Race That God Made Black, A.--L. B. Watkins, 59 - - Psalm of the Uplift, The.--J. Mord Allen, 50 - - Puppet-Player, The.--Miss Angelina W. Grimké, 153 - - - Rain Song, A.--C. B. Johnson, 99 - - Rainy Days.--Andrea Razafkeriefo, 263 - - Rain Music.--Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., 81 - - Rise! Young Negro--Rise!--John J. Fenner, Jr., 245 - - - Sandy Star.--W. S. Braithwaite, 106 - - Self-Determination.--L. P. Hill, 137 - - She Hugged Me.--_Folk Song_, 17 - - Singer, The.--Miss Eva A. Jessye, 69 - - Slump, The.--W. E. Bailey, 65 - - Smothered Fires.--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 150 - - Somebody’s Child.--Charles P. Wilson, 179 - - So Much.--C. B. Johnson, 98 - - Soul and Star.--C. B. Johnson, 96 - - Southern Love Song, A.--J. H. Jones, Jr., 115 - - Spring in New Hampshire.--Claude McKay, 127 - - Spring with the Teacher.--Miss Eva A. Jessye, 139 - - Steel Makers, The.--Leon R. Harris, 182 - - Sunset.--Miss Mary Effie Lee, 56 - - - Thanking God.--W. S. Braithwaite, 109 - - Thanksgiving.--W. S. Braithwaite, 262 - - The Flowers Take the Tears.--Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., 76 - - The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face.--J. W. Johnson, 226 - - These Are My People.--Fenton Johnson, 100 - - Threshing Floor, The.--Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., 75 - - Time to Die.--R. G. Dandridge, 171 - - To----.--R. G. Dandridge, 171 - - To a Negro Mother.--Ben E. Burrell, 249 - - To America.--J. W. Johnson, 53 - - To a Caged Canary....--L. P. Hill, 136 - - To a Nobly-Gifted Singer.--L. P. Hill, 137 - - To a Rosebud.--Miss Eva A. Jessye, 141 - - To a Wild Rose.--W. E. Bailey, 213 - - To Hollyhocks.--G. M. McClellan, 176 - - To My Grandmother.--Mrs. Mae Smith Johnson, 251 - - To My Lost Child.--Will Sexton, 233 - - To My Neighbor Boy.--Mrs. J. W. Hammond, 143 - - To My Son.--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 232 - - To Keep the Memory of Charlotte Forten Grimké.--Miss - Angelina W. Grimké, 155 - - To Our Boys.--Irvin W. Underhill, 185 - - Truth.--Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper, 28 - - Turn Out the Light.--J. H. Jones, Jr., 114 - - - Vashti.--Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper, 30 - - Victim of Microbes, A.--J. Mord Allen, 224 - - Violets.--Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, 55 - - - Want of You, The.--Miss Angelina W. Grimké, 154 - - We Wear the Mask.--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 47 - - What Is the Negro Doing?--W. Clarence Jordan, 190 - - What Need Have I for Memory?--Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, 149 - - While April Breezes Blow.--D. T. Williamson, 260 - - Winter Twilight, A.--Miss Angelina W. Grimké, 153 - - With the Lark.--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 46 - - - Young Warrior, The.--J. W. Johnson, 94 - - - Zalka Peetruza.--R. G. Dandridge, 180 - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Happily a great number of these, about three hundred and fifty, -accompanied by an essay setting forth their nature, origin, and -elements, are now made accessible in _Negro Folk Rhymes_, by Thomas W. -Talley, of Fisk University; the Macmillan Company, publishers, 1922. - -[2] We are enabled to give the following poems by the kind permission -of Dodd, Mead and Company, the publishers of Dunbar’s works. - -[3] _The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer_, containing the best prose and -poetic selections by and about the Negro Race, with programs arranged -for special entertainments. Edited by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson. J. L. -Nichols & Co., Naperville, Ill. - -[4] _Bronze_ has now been published. See Index of Authors. - -[5] _A Short History of the American Negro._ By Benjamin Brawley. The -Macmillan Company. - -[6] Published by Harcourt, Brace & Company, by whose kind permission I -use this selection. - - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Negro Poets and Their Poems, by Robert T. 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