path: root/74745-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74745 ***





                          Transcriber’s Notes


  Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by
  ♦♠♥♣ symbols in the text and are shown immediately below the
  paragraph or section in which they appear.

  Details and other notes may be found at the end of this eBook.




                            THE WEARY BLUES

                                 _by_

                            LANGSTON HUGHES

               _WITH AN INTRODUCTON BY CARL VAN VECHTEN_


                         [Illustration: logo]


                               NEW YORK
                          ALFRED · A · KNOPF
                                 1926




                            THE WEARY BLUES




COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC · SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND
PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · ESPARTO
PAPER MANUFACTURED IN SCOTLAND AND FURNISHED BY W. F. ETHERINGTON &
CO., NEW YORK · BOUND BY THE H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK.


             MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




                             TO MY MOTHER




I wish to thank the editors of _The Crisis_, _Opportunity_, _Survey
Graphic_, _Vanity Fair_, _The World Tomorrow_ and _The Amsterdam News_
for having first published some of the poems in this book.




               INTRODUCING LANGSTON HUGHES TO THE READER

                                  _I_


_At the moment I cannot recall the name of any other person whatever
who, at the age of twenty-three, has enjoyed so picturesque and
rambling an existence as Langston Hughes. Indeed, a complete account
of his disorderly and delightfully fantastic career would make a
fascinating picaresque romance which I hope this young Negro will
write before so much more befalls him that he may find it difficult to
capture all the salient episodes within the limits of a single volume._

_Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, he had lived, before
his twelfth year, in the City of Mexico, Topeka, Kansas, Colorado
Springs, Charlestown, Indiana, Kansas City, and Buffalo. He attended
Central High School, from which he graduated, at Cleveland, Ohio,
while in the summer, there and in Chicago, he worked as delivery- and
dummy-boy in hat-stores. In his senior year he was elected class poet
and editor of the Year Book._

_After four years in Cleveland, he once more joined his father
in Mexico, only to migrate to New York where he entered Columbia
University. There, finding the environment distasteful, or worse, he
remained till spring, when he quit, broke with his father and, with
thirteen dollars in cash, went on his own. First, he worked for a
truck-farmer on Staten Island; next, he delivered flowers for Thorley;
at length he partially satisfied an insatiable craving to go to sea by
signing up with an old ship anchored in the Hudson for the winter. His
first real cruise as a sailor carried him to the Canary Islands, the
Azores, and the West Coast of Africa, of which voyage he has written:
“Oh, the sun in Dakar! Oh, the little black girls of Burutu! Oh, the
blue, blue bay of Loanda! Calabar, the city lost in a forest; the long,
shining days at sea, the masts rocking against the stars at night;
the black Kru-boy sailors, taken at Freetown, bathing on deck morning
and evening; Tom Pey and Haneo, whose dangerous job it was to dive
under the seven-ton mahogany logs floating and bobbing at the ship’s
side and fasten them to the chains of the crane; the vile houses of
rotting women at Lagos; the desolation of the Congo; Johnny Walker,
and the millions of whisky bottles buried in the sea along the West
Coast; the daily fights on board, officers, sailors, everybody drunk;
the timorous, frightened missionaries we carried as passengers; and
George, the Kentucky colored boy, dancing and singing the Blues on the
after-deck under the stars.”_

_Returning to New York with plenty of money and a monkey, he presently
shipped again—this time for Holland. Again he came back to New York and
again he sailed—on his twenty-second birthday: February 1, 1924. Three
weeks later he found himself in Paris with less than seven dollars.
However, he was soon provided for: a woman of his own race engaged him
as doorman at her boîte de nuit. Later he was employed, first as second
cook, then as waiter, at the Grand Duc, where the Negro entertainer,
Florence, sang at this epoch. Here he made friends with an Italian
family who carried him off to their villa at Desenzano on Lago di
Garda where he passed a happy month, followed by a night in Verona
and a week in Venice. On his way back across Italy his passport was
stolen and he became a beach-comber in Genoa. He has described his
life there to me: “Wine and figs and pasta. And sunlight! And amusing
companions, dozens of other beach-combers roving the dockyards and
water-front streets, getting their heads whacked by the Fascisti, and
breaking one loaf of bread into so many pieces that nobody got more
than a crumb. I lived in the public gardens along the water-front and
slept in the Albergo Populare for two lire a night amidst the snores
of hundreds of other derelicts.... I painted my way home as a sailor.
It seems that I must have painted the whole ship myself. We made a
regular ‘grand tour’: Livorno, Napoli (we passed so close to Capri I
could have cried). Then all around Sicily—Catania, Messina, Palermo—the
Lipari Islands, miserable little peaks of pumice stone out in the sea;
then across to Spain, divine Spain! My buddy and I went on a spree in
Valencia for a night and a day.... Oh, the sweet wine of Valencia!”_

_He arrived in New York on November 10, 1924. That evening I attended a
dance given in Harlem by the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. Some time during the course of the night, Walter
White asked me to meet two young Negro poets. He introduced me to
Countée Cullen and Langston Hughes. Before that moment I had never
heard of either of them._

                                 _II_

_I have merely sketched a primitive outline of a career as rich in
adventures as a fruit-cake is full of raisins. I have already
stated that I hope Langston Hughes may be persuaded to set it down
on paper in the minutest detail, for the bull-fights in Mexico, the
drunken gaiety of the Grand Duc, the delicately exquisite grace of the
little black girls at Burutu, the exotic languor of the Spanish women
at Valencia, the barbaric jazz dances of the cabarets in New York’s own
Harlem, the companionship of sailors of many races and nationalities,
all have stamped an indelible impression on the highly sensitized,
poetic imagination of this young Negro, an impression which has found
its initial expression in the poems assembled in this book._

_And also herein may be discerned that nostalgia for color and warmth
and beauty which explains this boy’s nomadic instincts._

  _“We should have a land of sun,
  Of gorgeous sun,
  And a land of fragrant water
  Where the twilight
  Is a soft bandanna handkerchief
  Of rose and gold,
  And not this land where life is cold,”_

  _he sings. Again, he tells his dream:_

  _“To fling my arms wide
  In the face of the sun,
  Dance! whirl! whirl!
  Till the quick day is done.
  Rest at pale evening....
  A tall, slim tree....
  Night coming tenderly.
  Black like me.”_

_More of this wistful longing may be discovered in the poems entitled_
The South _and_ As I Grew Older. _His verses, however, are by no means
limited to an exclusive mood; he writes caressingly of little black
prostitutes in Harlem; his cabaret songs throb with the true jazz
rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries
bitterly from the heart of his race in_ Cross _and_ The Jester; _he
sighs, in one of the most successful of his fragile poems, over the
loss of a loved friend. Always, however, his stanzas are subjective,
personal. They are the (I had almost said informal, for they have a
highly deceptive air of spontaneous improvisation) expression of an
essentially sensitive and subtly illusive nature, seeking always to
break through the veil that obscures for him, at least in some degree,
the ultimate needs of that nature._

_To the Negro race in America, since the day when Phillis Wheatley
indited lines to General George Washington and other aristocratic
figures (for Phillis Wheatley never sang “My way’s cloudy,” or “By an
by, I’m goin to lay down dis heavy load”) there have been born many
poets. Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Jean
Toomer, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Countée Cullen, are a few of the more
memorable names. Not the least of these names, I think, is that of
Langston Hughes, and perhaps his adventures and personality offer the
promise of as rich a fulfillment as has been the lot of any of the
others._

                                            Carl Van Vechten.

  _New York._

  _August 3, 1925._




                               CONTENTS

  Introducing Langston Hughes to the reader  ♦9
    _by Carl Van Vechten_

  Proem                                     ♠19


  THE WEARY BLUES

  The Weary Blues                            23
  Jazzonia                                   25
  Negro Dancers                              26
  The Cat and the Saxophone                  27
  Young Singer                               28
  Cabaret                                    29
  To Midnight Nan at Leroy’s                 30
  To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead               31
  Harlem Night Club                          32
  Nude Young Dancer                          33
  Young Prostitute                           34
  To a Black Dancer                          35
  Song for a Banjo Dance                     36
  Blues Fantasy                              37
  Lenox Avenue: Midnight                     39


  DREAM VARIATIONS

  Dream Variations                           43
  Winter Moon                                44
  Poème d’Automne                            45
  Fantasy in Purple                          46
  March Moon                                 47
  Joy                                        48


  THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS

  The Negro Speaks of Rivers                ♥51
  Cross                                      52
  The Jester                                 53
  The South                                  54
  As I Grew Older                            55
  Aunt Sue’s Stories                         57
  Poem                                       58


  A BLACK PIERROT

  A Black Pierrot                            61
  Harlem Night Song                          62
  Songs to the Dark Virgin                   63
  Ardella                                    64
  Poem—To the Black Beloved                  65
  When Sue Wears Red                         66
  Pierrot                                    67


  WATER FRONT STREETS

  Water Front Streets                        71
  A Farewell                                 72
  Long Trip                                  73
  Port Town                                  74
  Sea Calm                                   75
  Caribbean Sunset                           76
  Young Sailor                               77
  Seascape                                   78
  Natcha                                     79
  Sea Charm                                  80
  Death of an Old Seaman                     81


  SHADOWS IN THE SUN

  Beggar Boy                                 85
  Troubled Woman                             86
  Suicide’s Note                             87
  Sick Room                                  88
  Soledad                                    89
  To the Dark Mercedes                       90
  Mexican Market Woman                       91
  After Many Springs                         92
  Young Bride                                93
  The Dream Keeper                           94
  Poem (To F. S.)                            95


  OUR LAND

  Our Land                                   99
  Lament for Dark Peoples                   100
  Afraid                                    101
  Poem—For the Portrait of an African Boy   102
  Summer Night                              103
  Disillusion                               104
  Danse Africaine                           105
  The White Ones                            106
  Mother to Son                             107
  Poem                                      108
  Epilogue                                  109

  ♦ “15” replaced with “9”
  ♠ “13” replaced with “19”
  ♥ “50” replaced with “51”




                                 PROEM

  I am a Negro:
    Black as the night is black,
    Black like the depths of my Africa.

  I’ve been a slave:
    Caesar 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.




                            THE WEARY BLUES


                            THE WEARY BLUES

    Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
    Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
      I heard a Negro play.
    Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
    By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
      He did a lazy sway....
      He did a lazy sway....
    To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
    With his ebony hands on each ivory key
    He made that poor piano moan with melody.
      O Blues!
    Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
    He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
    Sweet Blues!
    Coming from a black man’s soul.
      O Blues!
    In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
    I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
      “Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
      Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
      I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
      And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
    Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
    He played a few chords then he sang some more—
      “I got the Weary Blues
      And I can’t be satisfied.
      Got the Weary Blues
      And can’t be satisfied—
      I ain’t happy no mo’
      And I wish that I had died.”
    And far into the night he crooned that tune.
    The stars went out and so did the moon.
    The singer stopped playing and went to bed
    While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
    He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.


                               JAZZONIA

    Oh, silver tree!
    Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

    In a Harlem cabaret
    Six long-headed jazzers play.
    A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
    Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

    Oh, singing tree!
    Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

    Were Eve’s eyes
    In the first garden
    Just a bit too bold?
    Was Cleopatra gorgeous
    In a gown of gold?

    Oh, shining tree!
    Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

    In a whirling cabaret
    Six long-headed jazzers play.


                             NEGRO DANCERS

    “Me an’ ma baby’s
    Got two mo’ ways,
    Two mo’ ways to do de buck!
      Da, da,
      Da, da, da!
    Two mo’ ways to do de buck!”

    Soft light on the tables,
    Music gay,
    Brown-skin steppers
    In a cabaret.

    White folks, laugh!
    White folks, pray!

    “Me an’ ma baby’s
    Got two mo’ ways,
    Two mo’ ways to do de buck!”


                  THE CAT AND THE SAXOPHONE (2 A.M.)

    EVERYBODY
    Half-pint,—
    Gin?
    No, make it
    LOVES MY BABY
    corn. You like
    liquor,
    don’t you, honey?
    BUT MY BABY
    Sure. Kiss me,
    DON’T LOVE NOBODY
    daddy.
    BUT ME.
    Say!
    EVERYBODY
    Yes?
    WANTS MY BABY
    I’m your
    BUT MY BABY
    sweetie, ain’t I?
    DON’T WANT NOBODY
    Sure.
    BUT
    Then let’s
    ME,
    do it!
    SWEET ME.
    Charleston,
    mamma!
    !


                             YOUNG SINGER

    One who sings “chansons vulgaires”
    In a Harlem cellar
    Where the jazz-band plays
    From dark to dawn
    Would not understand
    Should you tell her
    That she is like a nymph
    For some wild faun.


                                CABARET

    Does a jazz-band ever sob?
    They say a jazz-band’s gay.
    Yet as the vulgar dancers whirled
    And the wan night wore away,
    One said she heard the jazz-band sob
    When the little dawn was grey.


                      TO MIDNIGHT NAN AT LEROY’S

    Strut and wiggle,
    Shameless gal.
    Wouldn’t no good fellow
    Be your pal.

    _Hear dat music....
    Jungle night.
    Hear dat music....
    And the moon was white._

    Sing your Blues song,
    Pretty baby.
    You want lovin’
    And you don’t mean maybe.

    _Jungle lover....
    Night black boy....
    Two against the moon
    And the moon was joy._

    Strut and wiggle,
    Shameless Nan.
    Wouldn’t no good fellow
    Be your man.


                     TO A LITTLE LOVER-LASS, DEAD

    She
    Who searched for lovers
    In the night
    Has gone the quiet way
    Into the still,
    Dark land of death
    Beyond the rim of day.

    Now like a little lonely waif
    She walks
    An endless street
    And gives her kiss to nothingness.
    Would God his lips were sweet!


                           HARLEM NIGHT CLUB

    Sleek black boys in a cabaret.
    Jazz-band, jazz-band,—
    Play, plAY, PLAY!
    Tomorrow....who knows?
    Dance today!

    White girls’ eyes
    Call gay black boys.
    Black boys’ lips
    Grin jungle joys.

    Dark brown girls
    In blond men’s arms.
    Jazz-band, jazz-band,—
    Sing Eve’s charms!

    White ones, brown ones,
    What do you know
    About tomorrow
    Where all paths go?

    Jazz-boys, jazz-boys,—
    Play, plAY, PLAY!
    Tomorrow....is darkness.
    Joy today!


                           NUDE YOUNG DANCER

    What jungle tree have you slept under,
    Midnight dancer of the jazzy hour?
    What great forest has hung its perfume
    Like a sweet veil about your bower?

    What jungle tree have you slept under,
    Night-dark girl of the swaying hips?
    What star-white moon has been your mother?
    To what clean boy have you offered your lips?


                           YOUNG PROSTITUTE

    Her dark brown face
    Is like a withered flower
    On a broken stem.
    Those kind come cheap in Harlem
    So they say.


                TO A BLACK DANCER IN “THE LITTLE SAVOY”

    Wine-maiden
    Of the jazz-tuned night,
    Lips
    Sweet as purple dew,
    Breasts
    Like the pillows of all sweet dreams,
    Who crushed
    The grapes of joy
    And dripped their juice
    On you?


                        SONG FOR A BANJO DANCE

    Shake your brown feet, honey,
    Shake your brown feet, chile,
    Shake your brown feet, honey,
    Shake ’em swift and wil’—
      Get way back, honey,
      Do that low-down step.
      Walk on over, darling,
        Now! Come out
        With your left.
    Shake your brown feet, honey,
    Shake ’em, honey chile.

    Sun’s going down this evening—
    Might never rise no mo’.
    The sun’s going down this very night—
    Might never rise no mo’—
    So dance with swift feet, honey,
      (The banjo’s sobbing low)
    Dance with swift feet, honey—
      Might never dance no mo’.

    Shake your brown feet, Liza,
    Shake ’em, Liza, chile,
    Shake your brown feet, Liza,
      (The music’s soft and wil’)
    Shake your brown feet, Liza,
      (The banjo’s sobbing low)
    The sun’s going down this very night—
      Might never rise no mo’.


                             BLUES FANTASY

    Hey! Hey!
    That’s what the
    Blues singers say.
    Singing minor melodies
    They laugh,
    Hey! Hey!

    My man’s done left me,
    Chile, he’s gone away.
    My good man’s left me,
    Babe, he’s gone away.
    Now the cryin’ blues
    Haunts me night and day.

    Hey!...Hey!

    Weary,
    Weary,
    Trouble, pain.
    Sun’s gonna shine
    Somewhere
    Again.

    I got a railroad ticket,
    Pack my trunk and ride.

    Sing ’em, sister!

    Got a railroad ticket,
    Pack my trunk and ride.
    And when I get on the train
    I’ll cast my blues aside.

    Laughing,
    Hey!...Hey!
    Laugh a loud,
    Hey! Hey!


                        LENOX AVENUE: MIDNIGHT

    The rhythm of life
    Is a jazz rhythm,
    Honey.
    The gods are laughing at us.

    The broken heart of love,
    The weary, weary heart of pain,—
      Overtones,
      Undertones,
    To the rumble of street cars,
    To the swish of rain.

    Lenox Avenue,
    Honey.
    Midnight,
    And the gods are laughing at us.




                           DREAM VARIATIONS


                          ♦DREAM VARIATIONS

    To fling my arms wide
    In some place of the sun,
    To whirl and to dance
    Till the white day is done.
    Then rest at cool evening
    Beneath a tall tree
    While night comes on gently,
      Dark like me,—
    That is my dream!

    To fling my arms wide
    In the face of the sun,
    Dance! whirl! whirl!
    Till the quick day is done.
    Rest at pale evening....
    A tall, slim tree....
    Night coming tenderly
      Black like me.

    ♦ “DREAM VARIATION” replaced with “DREAM VARIATIONS”


                              WINTER MOON

    How thin and sharp is the moon tonight!
    How thin and sharp and ghostly white
    Is the slim curved crook of the moon tonight!


                            POÈME D’AUTOMNE

    The autumn leaves
    Are too heavy with color.
    The slender trees
    On the Vulcan Road
    Are dressed in scarlet and gold
    Like young courtesans
    Waiting for their lovers.
    But soon
    The winter winds
    Will strip their bodies bare
    And then
    The sharp, sleet-stung
    Caresses of the cold
    Will be their only
    Love.


                           FANTASY IN PURPLE

    Beat the drums of tragedy for me.
    Beat the drums of tragedy and death.
    And let the choir sing a stormy song
    To drown the rattle of my dying breath.

    Beat the drums of tragedy for me,
    And let the white violins whir thin and slow,
    But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun
    To go with me
                 to the darkness
                                where I go.


                              MARCH MOON

    The moon is naked.
    The wind has undressed the moon.
    The wind has blown all the cloud-garments
    Off the body of the moon
    And now she’s naked,
    Stark naked.

    But why don’t you blush,
    O shameless moon?
    Don’t you know
    It isn’t nice to be naked?


                                  JOY

    I went to look for Joy,
    Slim, dancing Joy,
    Gay, laughing Joy,
    Bright-eyed Joy,—
    And I found her
    Driving the butcher’s cart
    In the arms of the butcher boy!
    Such company, such company,
    As keeps this young nymph, Joy!




                      THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS


                      THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS

                         (To W. E. B. DuBois)

    I’ve known rivers:

    I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of
      human blood in human veins.

    My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

    I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
    I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
    I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
    I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to
      New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the
      sunset.

    I’ve known rivers:
    Ancient, dusky rivers.

    My soul has grown deep like the rivers.


                                 CROSS

    My old man’s a white old man
    And my old mother’s black.
    If ever I cursed my white old man
    I take my curses back.

    If ever I cursed my black old mother
    And wished she were in hell,
    I’m sorry for that evil wish
    And now I wish her well.

    My old man died in a fine big house.
    My ma died in a shack.
    I wonder where I’m gonna die,
    Being neither white nor black?


                              THE JESTER

    In one hand
    I hold tragedy
    And in the other
    Comedy,—
    Masks for the soul.
    Laugh with me.
    You would laugh!
    Weep with me.
    You would weep!
    Tears are my laughter.
    Laughter is my pain.
    Cry at my grinning mouth,
    If you will.
    Laugh at my sorrow’s reign.
    I am the Black Jester,
    The dumb clown of the world,
    The booted, booted fool of silly men.
    Once I was wise.
    Shall I be wise again?


                               THE SOUTH

    The lazy, laughing South
    With blood on its mouth.
    The sunny-faced South,
      Beast-strong,
      Idiot-brained.
    The child-minded South
    Scratching in the dead fire’s ashes
    For a Negro’s bones.
      Cotton and the moon,
      Warmth, earth, warmth,
      The sky, the sun, the stars,
      The magnolia-scented South.
    Beautiful, like a woman,
    Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,
      Passionate, cruel,
      Honey-lipped, syphilitic—
      That is the South.
    And I, who am black, would love her
    But she spits in my face.
    And I, who am black,
    Would give her many rare gifts
    But she turns her back upon me.
      So now I seek the North—
      The cold-faced North,
      For she, they say,
      Is a kinder mistress,
    And in her house my children
    May escape the spell of the South.


                            AS I GREW OLDER

    It was a long time ago.
    I have almost forgotten my dream.
    But it was there then,
    In front of me,
    Bright like a sun,—
    My dream.

    And then the wall rose,
    Rose slowly,
    Slowly,
    Between me and my dream.
    Rose slowly, slowly,
    Dimming,
    Hiding,
    The light of my dream.
    Rose until it touched the sky,—
    The wall.

    Shadow.
    I am black.

    I lie down in the shadow.
    No longer the light of my dream before me,
    Above me.
    Only the thick wall.
    Only the shadow.

    My hands!
    My dark hands!
    Break through the wall!
    Find my dream!
    Help me to shatter this darkness,
    To smash this night,
    To break this shadow
    Into a thousand lights of sun,
    Into a thousand whirling dreams
    Of sun!


                          AUNT SUE’S STORIES

    Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.
    Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
    Summer nights on the front porch
    Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom
    And tells him stories.

    Black slaves
    Working in the hot sun,
    And black slaves
    Walking in the dewy night,
    And black slaves
    Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river
    Mingle themselves softly
    In the flow of old Aunt Sue’s voice,
    Mingle themselves softly
    In the dark shadows that cross and recross
    Aunt Sue’s stories.

    And the dark-faced child, listening,
    Knows that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories.
    He knows that Aunt Sue
    Never got her stories out of any book at all,
    But that they came
    Right out of her own life.

    And the dark-faced child is quiet
    Of a summer night
    Listening to Aunt Sue’s stories.


                                 POEM

    The night is beautiful,
    So the faces of my people.

    The stars are beautiful,
    So the eyes of my people.

    Beautiful, also, is the sun.
    Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.




                             BLACK PIERROT


                            A BLACK PIERROT

    I am a black Pierrot:
      She did not love me,
      So I crept away into the night
      And the night was black, too.

    I am a black Pierrot:
      She did not love me,
      So I wept until the red dawn
      Dripped blood over the eastern hills
      And my heart was bleeding, too.

    I am a black Pierrot:
      She did not love me,
      So with my once gay-colored soul
      Shrunken like a balloon without air,
      I went forth in the morning
      To seek a new brown love.


                           HARLEM NIGHT SONG

    Come,
    Let us roam the night together
    Singing.

    I love you.

    Across
    The Harlem roof-tops
    Moon is shining.
    Night sky is blue.
    Stars are great drops
    Of golden dew.
    In the cabaret
    The jazz-band’s playing.

    I love you.

    Come,
    Let us roam the night together
    Singing.


                       SONGS TO THE DARK VIRGIN

                                   I

    Would
    That I were a jewel,
    A shattered jewel,
    That all my shining brilliants
    Might fall at thy feet,
    Thou dark one.

                                  II

    Would
    That I were a garment,
    A shimmering, silken garment,
    That all my folds
    Might wrap about thy body,
    Absorb thy body,
    Hold and hide thy body,
    Thou dark one.

                                  III

    Would
    That I were a flame,
    But one sharp, leaping flame
    To annihilate thy body,
    Thou dark one.


                                ARDELLA

    I would liken you
    To a night without stars
    Were it not for your eyes.
    I would liken you
    To a sleep without dreams
    Were it not for your songs.


                                 POEM

                         To the Black Beloved

    Ah,
    My black one,
    Thou art not beautiful
    Yet thou hast
    A loveliness
    Surpassing beauty.

    Oh,
    My black one,
    Thou art not good
    Yet thou hast
    A purity
    Surpassing goodness.

    Ah,
    My black one,
    Thou art not luminous
    Yet an altar of jewels,
    An altar of shimmering jewels,
    Would pale in the light
    Of thy darkness,
    Pale in the light
    Of thy nightness.


                          WHEN SUE WEARS RED

    When Susanna Jones wears red
    Her face is like an ancient cameo
    Turned brown by the ages.

    Come with a blast of trumpets,
      Jesus!

    When Susanna Jones wears red
    A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night
    Walks once again.

    Blow trumpets, Jesus!

    And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red
    Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.

    Sweet silver trumpets,
      Jesus!


                                PIERROT

    I work all day,
    Said Simple John,
    Myself a house to buy.
    I work all day,
    Said Simple John,
    But Pierrot wondered why.

    For Pierrot loved the long white road,
    And Pierrot loved the moon,
    And Pierrot loved a star-filled sky,
    And the breath of a rose in June.

    I have one wife,
    Said Simple John,
    And, faith, I love her yet.
    I have one wife,
    Said Simple John,
    But Pierrot left Pierrette.

    For Pierrot saw a world of girls,
    And Pierrot loved each one,
    And Pierrot thought all maidens fair
    As flowers in the sun.

    Oh, I am good,
    Said Simple John,
    The Lord will take me in.
    Yes, I am good,
    Said Simple John,
    But Pierrot’s steeped in sin.

    For Pierrot played on a slim guitar,
    And Pierrot loved the moon,
    And Pierrot ran down the long white road
    With the burgher’s wife one June.




                         ♦WATER FRONT STREETS


                         ♦WATER FRONT STREETS

    The spring is not so beautiful there,—
      But dream ships sail away
    To where the spring is wondrous rare
      And life is gay.

    The spring is not so beautiful there,—
      But lads put out to sea
    Who carry beauties in their hearts
      And dreams, like me.

    ♦ “WATER-FRONT” replaced with “WATER FRONT”


                              A FAREWELL

    With gypsies and sailors,
    Wanderers of the hills and seas,
    I go to seek my fortune.
    With pious folk and fair
    I must have a parting.
    But you will not miss me,—
    You who live between the hills
    And have never seen the seas.


                               LONG TRIP

    The sea is a wilderness of waves,
    A desert of water.
    We dip and dive,
    Rise and roll,
    Hide and are hidden
    On the sea.
      Day, night,
      Night, day,
    The sea is a desert of waves,
    A wilderness of water.


                               PORT TOWN

    Hello, sailor boy,
    In from the sea!
    Hello, sailor,
    Come with me!

    Come on drink cognac.
    Rather have wine?
    Come here, I love you.
    Come and be mine.

    Lights, sailor boy,
    Warm, white lights.
    Solid land, kid.
    Wild, white nights.

    Come on, sailor,
    Out o’ the sea.
    Let’s go, sweetie!
    Come with me.


                               SEA CALM

    How still,
    How strangely still
    The water is today.
    It is not good
    For water
    To be so still that way.


                           CARIBBEAN SUNSET

    God having a hemorrhage,
    Blood coughed across the sky,
    Staining the dark sea red,
    That is sunset in the Caribbean.


                             YOUNG SAILOR

    He carries
    His own strength
    And his own laughter,
    His own today
    And his own hereafter,—
    This strong young sailor
    Of the wide seas.

    What is money for?
    To spend, he says.
    And wine?
    To drink.
    And women?
    To love.
    And today?
    For joy.
    And tomorrow?
    For joy.
    And the green sea
    For strength,
    And the brown land
    For laughter.
    And nothing hereafter.


                               SEASCAPE

    Off the coast of Ireland
      As our ship passed by
    We saw a line of fishing ships
      Etched against the sky.

    Off the coast of England
      As we rode the foam
    We saw an Indian merchantman
      Coming home.


                                NATCHA

    Natcha, offering love.
    For ten shillings offering love.
    Offering: A night with me, honey.
    A long, sweet night with me.
      Come, drink palm wine.
      Come, drink kisses.
    A long, dream night with me.


                               SEA CHARM

    Sea charm
    The sea’s own children
    Do not understand.
    They know
    But that the sea is strong
    Like God’s hand.
    They know
    But that sea wind is sweet
    Like God’s breath,
    And that the sea holds
    A wide, deep death.


                        DEATH OF AN OLD SEAMAN

    We buried him high on a windy hill,
    But his soul went out to sea.
    I know, for I heard, when all was still,
    His sea-soul say to me:

    Put no tombstone at my head,
    For here I do not make my bed.
    Strew no flowers on my grave,
    I’ve gone back to the wind and wave.
    Do not, do not weep for me,
    For I am happy with my sea.




                          SHADOWS IN THE SUN


                              BEGGAR BOY

    What is there within this beggar lad
    That I can neither hear nor feel nor see,
    That I can neither know nor understand
    And still it calls to me?

    Is not he but a shadow in the sun—
    A bit of clay, brown, ugly, given life?
    And yet he plays upon his flute a wild free tune
    As if Fate had not bled him with her knife!


                            TROUBLED WOMAN

    She stands
    In the quiet darkness,
    This troubled woman,
    Bowed by
    Weariness and pain,
    Like an
    Autumn flower
    In the frozen rain.
    Like a
    Wind-blown autumn flower
    That never lifts its head
    Again.


                            SUICIDE’S NOTE

    The calm,
    Cool face of the river
    Asked me for a kiss.


                               SICK ROOM

    How quiet
    It is in this sick room
    Where on the bed
    A silent woman lies between two lovers—
    Life and Death,
    And all three covered with a sheet of pain.


                                SOLEDAD

                           A Cuban Portrait

    The shadows
    Of too many nights of love
    Have fallen beneath your eyes.
    Your eyes,
    So full of pain and passion,
    So full of lies.
    So full of pain and passion,
    Soledad,
    So deeply scarred,
    So still with silent cries.


             TO THE DARK MERCEDES OF “EL PALACIO DE AMOR”

    Mercedes is a jungle-lily in a death house.
    Mercedes is a doomed star.
    Mercedes is a charnel rose.
    Go where gold
    Will fall at the feet of your beauty,
    Mercedes.
    Go where they will pay you well
    For your loveliness.


                         MEXICAN MARKET WOMAN

    This ancient hag
    Who sits upon the ground
    Selling her scanty wares
    Day in, day round,
    Has known high wind-swept mountains,
    And the sun has made
    Her skin so brown.


                          AFTER MANY SPRINGS

    Now,
    In June,
    When the night is a vast softness
    Filled with blue stars,
    And broken shafts of moon-glimmer
    Fall upon the earth,
    Am I too old to see the fairies dance?
    I cannot find them any more.


                              YOUNG BRIDE

    They say she died,—
    Although I do not know,
    They say she died of grief
    And in the earth-dark arms of Death
    Sought calm relief,
    And rest from pain of love
    In loveless sleep.


                           THE DREAM KEEPER

    Bring me all of your dreams,
    You dreamers.
    Bring me all of your
    Heart melodies
    That I may wrap them
    In a blue cloud-cloth
    Away from the too rough fingers
    Of the world.


                                 POEM

                              (To F. S.)

    I loved my friend.
    He went away from me.
    There’s nothing more to say.
    The poem ends,
    Soft as it began,—
    I loved my friend.




                               OUR LAND


                               OUR LAND

                      Poem for a Decorative Panel

    We should have a land of sun,
    Of gorgeous sun,
    And a land of fragrant water
    Where the twilight
    Is a soft bandanna handkerchief
    Of rose and gold,
    And not this land where life is cold.

    We should have a land of trees,
    Of tall thick trees
    Bowed down with chattering parrots
    Brilliant as the day,
    And not this land where birds are grey.

    Ah, we should have a land of joy,
    Of love and joy and wine and song,
    And not this land where joy is wrong.

    Oh, sweet, away!
    Ah, my beloved one, away!


                        LAMENT FOR DARK PEOPLES

    I was a red man one time,
    But the white men came.
    I was a black man, too,
    But the white men came.

    They drove me out of the forest.
    They took me away from the jungles.
    I lost my trees.
    I lost my silver moons.

    Now they’ve caged me
    In the circus of civilization.
    Now I herd with the many—
    Caged in the circus of civilization.


                                AFRAID

    We cry among the skyscrapers
    As our ancestors
    Cried among the palms in Africa
    Because we are alone,
    It is night,
    And we’re afraid.


                                 POEM

    For the portrait of an African boy after the manner of Gauguin

    All the tom-toms of the jungles beat in my blood,
    And all the wild hot moons of the jungles shine in my soul.
    I am afraid of this civilization—
      So hard,
        So strong,
          So cold.


                             SUMMER NIGHT

    The sounds
    Of the Harlem night
    Drop one by one into stillness.
    The last player-piano is closed.
    The last victrola ceases with the
    “Jazz Boy Blues.”
    The last crying baby sleeps
    And the night becomes
    Still as a whispering heartbeat.
    I toss
    Without rest in the darkness,
    Weary as the tired night,
    My soul
    Empty as the silence,
    Empty with a vague,
    Aching emptiness,
    Desiring,
    Needing someone,
    Something.

    I toss without rest
    In the darkness
    Until the new dawn,
    Wan and pale,
    Descends like a white mist
    Into the court-yard.


                              DISILLUSION

    I would be simple again,
    Simple and clean
    Like the earth,
    Like the rain,
    Nor ever know,
    Dark Harlem,
    The wild laughter
    Of your mirth
    Nor the salt tears
    Of your pain.
    Be kind to me,
    Oh, great dark city.
    Let me forget.
    I will not come
    To you again.


                            DANSE AFRICAINE

    The low beating of the tom-toms,
    The slow beating of the tom-toms.
      Low ... slow
      Slow ... low—
      Stirs your blood.
        Dance!
    A night-veiled girl
      Whirls softly into a
      Circle of light.
      Whirls softly ... slowly,
    Like a wisp of smoke around the fire—
      And the tom-toms beat,
      And the tom-toms beat,
    And the low beating of the tom-toms
      Stirs your blood.


                            THE WHITE ONES

    I do not hate you,
    For your faces are beautiful, too.
    I do not hate you,
    Your faces are whirling lights of loveliness and splendor, too.
    Yet why do you torture me,
    O, white strong ones,
    Why do you torture me?


                             MOTHER TO SON

    Well, son, I’ll tell you:
    Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
    It’s had tacks in it,
    And splinters,
    And boards torn up,
    And places with no carpet on the floor—
    Bare.
    But all the time
    I’se been a-cimbin’ on,
    And reachin’ landin’s,
    And turnin’ corners,
    And sometimes goin’ in the dark
    Where there ain’t been no light.
    So boy, don’t you turn back.
    Don’t you set down on the steps
    ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
    Don’t you fall now—
    For I’se still goin’, honey,
    I’se still climbin’,
    And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.


                                 POEM

    We have tomorrow
    Bright before us
    Like a flame.

    Yesterday
    A night-gone thing,
    A sun-down name.

    And dawn-today
    Broad arch above the road we came.


                               EPILOGUE

    I, too, sing America.

    I am the darker brother.
    They send me to eat in the kitchen
    When company comes,
    But I laugh,
    And eat well,
    And grow strong.

    Tomorrow,
    I’ll sit at the table
    When company comes.
    Nobody’ll dare
    Say to me,
    “Eat in the kitchen,”
    Then.

    Besides,
    They’ll see how beautiful I am
    And be ashamed,—

    I, too, am America.




                        Transcriber’s Notes


 1. Differences between the table of contents and the text have been
    reconciled. Obsolete and alternative spellings have been left
    unchanged. Grammar has not been altered.

 2. Italics font is enclosed in _underscores_.

 3. Illustrations are indicated by: [Illustration: caption and/or
    descriptive text].

 4. “Edit Distance” in Corrections table below refers to the
    Levenshtein Distance.

                             Corrections

      pg(s)          Source               Correction           Edit
                                                               Distance

        TOC           15                    9                    2
        TOC           13                    19                   1
        TOC           50                    51                   1
        43            DREAM VARIATION      DREAM VARIATIONS      1
        69            WATER-FRONT          WATER FRONT           1
        71            WATER-FRONT          WATER FRONT           1



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74745 ***