To the Swimmer

To the Swimmer

To the Swimmer

By Countee Cullen 1903–1946 Countee Cullen

Now as I watch you, strong of arm and endurance, battling and struggling

With the waves that rush against you, ever with invincible strength returning

Into my heart, grown each day more tranquil and peaceful, comes a fierce longing

Of mind and soul that will not be appeased until, like you, I breast yon deep and boundless expanse of blue.

With an outward stroke of power intense your mighty arm goes forth,

Cleaving its way through waters that rise and roll, ever a ceaseless vigil keeping

Over the treasures beneath.

My heart goes out to you of dauntless courage and spirit indomitable,

And though my lips would speak, my spirit forbids me to ask,

“Is your heart as true as your arm?”

Storm Ending

Storm Ending

By Jean Toomer 1894–1967 Jean Toomer

Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads,

Great, hollow, bell-like flowers,

Rumbling in the wind,

Stretching clappers to strike our ears . . .

Full-lipped flowers

Bitten by the sun

Bleeding rain

Dripping rain like golden honey—

And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.

Banking Coal

Banking Coal

By Jean Toomer 1894–1967 Jean Toomer

Whoever it was who brought the first wood and coal

To start the Fire, did his part well;

Not all wood takes to fire from a match,

Nor coal from wood before it’s burned to charcoal.

The wood and coal in question caught a flame

And flared up beautifully, touching the air

That takes a flame from anything.

Somehow the fire was furnaced,

And then the time was ripe for some to say,

“Right banking of the furnace saves the coal.”

I’ve seen them set to work, each in his way,

Though all with shovels and with ashes,

Never resting till the fire seemed most dead;

Whereupon they’d crawl in hooded night-caps

Contentedly to bed. Sometimes the fire left alone

Would die, but like as not spiced tongues

Remaining by the hardest on till day would flicker up,

Never strong, to anyone who cared to rake for them.

But roaring fires never have been made that way.

I’d like to tell those folks that one grand flare

Transferred to memory tissues of the air

Is worth a like, or, for dull minds that turn in gold,

All money ever saved by banking coal.

Song of the Son

Song of the Son

By Jean Toomer 1894–1967 Jean Toomer

Pour O pour that parting soul in song,

O pour it in the sawdust glow of night,

Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,

And let the valley carry it along.

And let the valley carry it along.

O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,

So scant of grass, so profligate of pines,

Now just before an epoch’s sun declines

Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee.

Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

In time, for though the sun is setting on

A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;

Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet

To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,

Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums,

Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,

Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare

One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

An everlasting song, a singing tree,

Caroling softly souls of slavery,

What they were, and what they are to me,

Caroling softly souls of slavery

Common Dust

Common Dust

By Georgia Douglas Johnson 1880–1966

And who shall separate the dust

What later we shall be:

Whose keen discerning eye will scan

And solve the mystery?

The high, the low, the rich, the poor,

The black, the white, the red,

And all the chromatique between,

Of whom shall it be said:

Here lies the dust of Africa;

Here are the sons of Rome;

Here lies the one unlabelled,

The world at large his home!

Can one then separate the dust?

Will mankind lie apart,

When life has settled back again

The same as from the start?

Sence You Went Away

Sence You Went Away

By James Weldon Johnson 1871–1938

Seems lak to me de stars don't shine so bright,

Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light,

Seems lak to me der's nothin' goin' right,

Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me de sky ain't half so blue,

Seems lak to me dat eve'ything wants you,

Seems lak to me I don't know what to do,

Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me dat eve'ything is wrong,

Seems lak to me de day's jes twice ez long,

Seems lak to me de bird's forgot his song,

Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me I jes can't he’p but sigh,

Seems lak to me ma th’oat keeps gittin’ dry,

Seems lak to me a tear stays in ma eye,

Sence you went away.

Hard-time blues

Hard-time blues

By William Waring Cuney 1906–1976

Went down home ’bout a year ago

things so bad, Lord, my heart was sore.

Folks had nothing was a sin and shame

every-body said hard time was the blame.

Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad

lost every thing they ever had.

Sun was shining fourteen days and no rain

hoeing and planting was all in vain.

Hard hard times, Lord, all around

meal barrels empty crops burnt to the ground.

Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad

lost every thing they ever had.

Skinny looking children bellies poking out

that old pellagra without a doubt.

Old folks hanging ’round the cabin door

ain’t seen times this hard before.

Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad

lost every thing they ever had.

I went to the Boss at the Commissary store

folks all starving please don’t close your door

want more food a little more time to pay

Boss Man laughed and walked away.

Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad

lost every thing they ever had.

Landlord coming ’round when the rent is due

you ain’t got the money take your home from you

take your mule and horse even take your cow

get offa my land you ain’t no good no how.

Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad

lost every thing they ever had.

Nineteen-twenty-nine

Nineteen-twenty-nine

By William Waring Cuney 1906–1976

Some folks hollered hard times

in nineteen-twenty-nine.

In nineteen-twenty-eight

say I was way behind.

Some folks hollered hard times

because hard times were new.

Hard times is all I ever had,

why should I lie to you?

Some folks hollered hard times.

What is it all about?

Things were bad for me when

those hard times started out.

No Images

No Images

By William Waring Cuney 1906–1976

She does not know

her beauty,

she thinks her brown body

has no glory.

If she could dance

naked

under palm trees

and see her image in the river,

she would know.

But there are no palm trees

on the street,

and dish water gives back

no images.

Joy in the Woods Joy in the Woods By Claude McKay 1889–1948

There is joy in the woods just now,

The leaves are whispers of song,

And the birds make mirth on the bough

And music the whole day long,

And God! to dwell in the town

In these springlike summer days,

On my brow an unfading frown

And hate in my heart always—

A machine out of gear, aye, tired,

Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired.

Just forced to go on through fear,

For every day I must eat

And find ugly clothes to wear,

And bad shoes to hurt my feet

And a shelter for work-drugged sleep!

A mere drudge! but what can one do?

A man that’s a man cannot weep!

Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no!

But a slave should never grow tired,

Whom the masters have kindly hired.

But oh! for the woods, the flowers

Of natural, sweet perfume,

The heartening, summer showers

And the smiling shrubs in bloom,

Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn,

The fresh and life-giving air,

The billowing waves of corn

And the birds’ notes rich and clear:—

For a man-machine toil-tired

May crave beauty too—though he’s hired.

Seventh Street

Seventh Street

By Jean Toomer 1894–1967 Jean Toomer

Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,

Bootleggers in silken shirts,

Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,

Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

Seventh Street is a bastrad of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned, soft-skinned wedge of nigger life breathing its loafer air, jazz songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhythms, black reddish blood into the white and whitewashed wood of Washington. Stale soggy wood of Washington. Wedges rust in soggy wood. . . Split it! In two! Again! Shred it! . . the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. Prohibition would put a stop to it. Who set you flowing? White and whitewash disappear in blood. Who set you flowing? Flowing down the smooth asphalt of Seventh Street, in shanties, brick office buildings, theaters, drug stores, restaurants, and cabarets? Eddying on the corners? Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? God would not dare to suck black red blood. A Nigger God! He would duck his head in shame and call for the Judgement Day. Who set you flowing?

Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts,

Bootleggers in silken shirts,

Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs,

Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

After the Winter

After the Winter

By Claude McKay 1889–1948 Claude McKay

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves

And against the morning’s white

The shivering birds beneath the eaves

Have sheltered for the night,

We’ll turn our faces southward, love,

Toward the summer isle

Where bamboos spire the shafted grove

And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill

Where towers the cotton tree,

And leaps the laughing crystal rill,

And works the droning bee.

And we will build a cottage there

Beside an open glade,

With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,

And ferns that never fade.

Subway Wind

Subway Wind

By Claude McKay 1889–1948 Claude McKay

Far down, down through the city’s great gaunt gut

The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;

In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut,

Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.

And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door

To give their summer jackets to the breeze;

Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar

Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas;

Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift

Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,

Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift

Lightly among the islands of the deep;

Islands of lofy palm trees blooming white

That led their perfume to the tropic sea,

Where fields lie idle in the dew-drenched night,

And the Trades float above them fresh and free.

My Little Dreams

My Little Dreams

By Georgia Douglas Johnson 1880–1966

I’m folding up my little dreams

Within my heart tonight,

And praying I may soon forget

The torture of their sight.

For time’s deft fingers scroll my brow

With fell relentless art—

I’m folding up my little dreams

Tonight, within my heart.

The Return

The Return

By Georgia Douglas Johnson 1880–1966

Again we meet—a flashing glance,

And then, to scabbard, goes the lance,

While thoughts troop on in cavalcade

Adown the wide aisles time has made.

Back in the glow of yesterday,

With tender troth you rode away,

The sheen of rainbows in our eyes,

That swept the rim of other skies.

And now a writhing worm am I,

Beneath a doomed love’s lensing eye,

Let me but stagger, far from sight,

To hide my anguish, in the night.

Foredoom

Foredoom

By Georgia Douglas Johnson 1880–1966

Her life was dwarfed, and wed to blight,

Her very days were shades of night,

Her every dream was born entombed,

Her soul, a bud,—that never bloomed.

The Heart of a Woman

The Heart of a Woman

By Georgia Douglas Johnson 1880–1966

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,

As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,

Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam

In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,

And enters some alien cage in its plight,

And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars

While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars

April Rain Song

April Rain Song

By Langston Hughes 1902–1967 Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

I look at the world

I look at the world

By Langston Hughes 1902–1967 Langston Hughes

I look at the world

From awakening eyes in a black face—

And this is what I see:

This fenced-off narrow space

Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls

Through dark eyes in a dark face—

And this is what I know:

That all these walls oppression builds

Will have to go!

I look at my own body

With eyes no longer blind—

And I see that my own hands can make

The world that's in my mind.

Then let us hurry, comrades,

The road to find.

Remember

Remember

By Langston Hughes 1902–1967 Langston Hughes

Remember

The days of bondage—

And remembering—

Do not stand still.

Go to the highest hill

And look down upon the town

Where you are yet a slave.

Look down upon any town in Carolina

Or any town in Maine, for that matter,

Or Africa, your homeland—

And you will see what I mean for you to see—

The white hand:

The thieving hand.

The white face:

The lying face.

The white power:

The unscrupulous power

That makes of you

The hungry wretched thing you are today.

You and your whole race.

You and your whole race.

By Langston Hughes 1902–1967 Langston Hughes

You and your whole race.

Look down upon the town in which you live

And be ashamed.

Look down upon white folks

And upon yourselves

And be ashamed

That such supine poverty exists there,

That such stupid ignorance breeds children there

Behind such humble shelters of despair—

That you yourselves have not the sense to care

Nor the manhood to stand up and say

I dare you to come one step nearer, evil world,

With your hands of greed seeking to touch my throat, I dare you to come one step nearer me:

When you can say that

you will be free!

A Black Man Talks of Reaping

A Black Man Talks of Reaping

By Arna Bontemps 1902–1973 Arna Bontemps

I have sown beside all waters in my day.

I planted deep, within my heart the fear

that wind or fowl would take the grain away.