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Title: Color

Author: Countee Cullen

Release date: April 14, 2023 [eBook #70543]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Harper & Brothers

Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLOR ***

Color

COLOR

By
Countee Cullen

Harper & Brothers, Publishers
New York and London
mcmxxv

COLOR

To my Mother and Father
This First Book

Acknowledgments

For permission to reprint certain of these poems thanks is hereby given to the following publications:

The American Mercury
The Bookman
The Century
The Crisis
The Conning Tower: New York World
Folio
Harper’s Magazine
Les Continents
The Messenger
The Nation
Opportunity
Palms
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
The Southwestern Christian Advocate
The Survey Graphic
The World Tomorrow
Vanity Fair

[ix]

COLOR
TO YOU WHO READ MY BOOK	xiii
YET DO I MARVEL	3
A SONG OF PRAISE	4
BROWN BOY TO BROWN GIRL	5
A BROWN GIRL DEAD	6
TO A BROWN GIRL	7
TO A BROWN BOY	8
BLACK MAGDALENS	9
ATLANTIC CITY WAITER	10
NEAR WHITE	11
TABLEAU	12
HARLEM WINE	13
SIMON THE CYRENIAN SPEAKS	14
INCIDENT	15
TWO WHO CROSSED A LINE (SHE CROSSES)	16
TWO WHO CROSSED A LINE (HE CROSSES)	17
SATURDAY’S CHILD	18
THE DANCE OF LOVE	19
PAGAN PRAYER	20
WISDOM COMETH WITH THE YEARS	22
TO MY FAIRER BRETHREN	23
FRUIT OF THE FLOWER	24
THE SHROUD OF COLOR	26
HERITAGE	36
EPITAPHS[x]
FOR A POET	45
FOR MY GRANDMOTHER	46
FOR A CYNIC	47
FOR A SINGER	48
FOR A VIRGIN	49
FOR A LADY I KNOW	50
FOR A LOVELY LADY	51
FOR AN ATHEIST	52
FOR AN EVOLUTIONIST AND HIS OPPONENT	53
FOR AN ANARCHIST	54
FOR A MAGICIAN	55
FOR A PESSIMIST	56
FOR A MOUTHY WOMAN	57
FOR A PHILOSOPHER	58
FOR AN UNSUCCESSFUL SINNER	59
FOR A FOOL	60
FOR ONE WHO GAYLY SOWED HIS OATS	61
FOR A SKEPTIC	62
FOR A FATALIST	63
FOR DAUGHTERS OF MAGDALEN	64
FOR A WANTON	65
FOR A PREACHER	66
FOR ONE WHO DIED SINGING OF DEATH	67
FOR JOHN KEATS, APOSTLE OF BEAUTY	68
FOR HAZEL HALL, AMERICAN POET	69
FOR PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR	70
FOR JOSEPH CONRAD	71
FOR MYSELF	72
ALL THE DEAD	73
FOR LOVE’S SAKE[xi]
OH, FOR A LITTLE WHILE BE KIND	77
IF YOU SHOULD GO	78
TO ONE WHO SAID ME NAY	79
ADVICE TO YOUTH	80
CAPRICE	81
SACRAMENT	82
BREAD AND WINE	83
SPRING REMINISCENCE	84
VARIA
SUICIDE CHANT	87
SHE OF THE DANCING FEET SINGS	89
JUDAS ISCARIOT	90
THE WISE	95
MARY, MOTHER OF CHRIST	96
DIALOGUE	97
IN MEMORY OF COL. CHARLES YOUNG	99
TO MY FRIENDS	100
GODS	101
TO JOHN KEATS, POET. AT SPRINGTIME	102
ON GOING	105
HARSH WORLD THAT LASHEST ME	106
REQUIESCAM	108

[xii]

[xiii]

To You Who Read My Book

SOON every sprinter,

However fleet,

Comes to a winter

Of sure defeat:

Though he may race

Like the hunted doe,

Time has a pace

To lay him low.

Soon we who sing,

However high,

Must face the Thing

We cannot fly.

Yea, though we fling

Our notes to the sun,

Time will outsing

Us every one.

All things must change

As the wind is blown;

Time will estrange

The flesh from the bone.

[xiv]

The dream shall elude

The dreamer’s clasp,

And only its hood

Shall comfort his grasp.

A little while,

Too brief at most,

And even my smile

Will be a ghost.

A little space,

A Finger’s crook,

And who shall trace

The path I took?

Who shall declare

My whereabouts;

Say if in the air

My being shouts

Along light ways,

Or if in the sea,

Or deep earth stays

The germ of me?

Ah, none knows, none,

Save (but too well)

The Cryptic One

Who will not tell.

[xv]

This is my hour

To wax and climb,

Flaunt a red flower

In the face of time.

And only an hour

Time gives, then snap

Goes the flower,

And dried is the sap.

Juice of the first

Grapes of my vine,

I proffer your thirst

My own heart’s wine.

Here of my growing

A red rose sways,

Seed of my sowing,

And work of my days.

(I run, but time’s

Abreast with me;

I sing, but he climbs

With my highest C.)

Drink while my blood

Colors the wine,

Reach while the bud

Is still on the vine....

[xvi]

Then ...

When the hawks of death

Tear at my throat

Till song and breath

Ebb note by note,

Turn to this book

Of the mellow word

For a singing look

At the stricken bird.

Say, “This is the way

He chirped and sung,

In the sweet heyday

When his heart was young.

Though his throat is bare,

By death defiled,

Song labored there

And bore a child.”

When the dreadful Ax

Rives me apart,

When the sharp wedge cracks

My arid heart,

Turn to this book

Of the singing me

For a springtime look

At the wintry tree.

[xvii]

Say, “Thus it was weighed

With flower and fruit,

Ere the Ax was laid

Unto its root.

Though the blows fall free

On a gnarled trunk now,

Once he was a tree

With a blossomy bough.”

[1]

Color

[2]

[3]

Yet Do I Marvel

I DOUBT not God is good, well-meaning, kind,

And did He stoop to quibble could tell why

The little buried mole continues blind,

Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,

Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus

Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare

If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus

To struggle up a never-ending stair.

Inscrutable His ways are, and immune

To catechism by a mind too strewn

With petty cares to slightly understand

What awful brain compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

[4]

A Song of Praise

(For one who praised his lady’s being fair.)

YOU have not heard my love’s dark throat,

Slow-fluting like a reed,

Release the perfect golden note

She caged there for my need.

Her walk is like the replica

Of some barbaric dance

Wherein the soul of Africa

Is winged with arrogance.

And yet so light she steps across

The ways her sure feet pass,

She does not dent the smoothest moss

Or bend the thinnest grass.

My love is dark as yours is fair,

Yet lovelier I hold her

Than listless maids with pallid hair,

And blood that’s thin and colder.

You-proud-and-to-be-pitied one,

Gaze on her and despair;

Then seal your lips until the sun

Discovers one as fair.

[5]

Brown Boy to Brown Girl

(Remembrance on a hill) (For Yolande)

“AS surely as I hold your hand in mine,

As surely as your crinkled hair belies

The enamoured sun pretending that he dies

While still he loiters in its glossy shine,

As surely as I break the slender line

That spider linked us with, in no least wise

Am I uncertain that these alien skies

Do not our whole life measure and confine.

No less, once in a land of scarlet suns

And brooding winds, before the hurricane

Bore down upon us, long before this pain,

We found a place where quiet water runs;

I held your hand this way upon a hill,

And felt my heart forebear, my pulse grow still.”

[6]

A Brown Girl Dead

WITH two white roses on her breasts,

White candles at head and feet,

Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;

Lord Death has found her sweet.

Her mother pawned her wedding ring

To lay her out in white;

She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing

To see herself tonight.

[7]

To a Brown Girl

(For Roberta)

WHAT if his glance is bold and free,

His mouth the lash of whips?

So should the eyes of lovers be,

And so a lover’s lips.

What if no puritanic strain

Confines him to the nice?

He will not pass this way again,

Nor hunger for you twice.

Since in the end consort together

Magdalen and Mary,

Youth is the time for careless weather:

Later, lass, be wary.

[8]

To a Brown Boy

THAT brown girl’s swagger gives a twitch

To beauty like a queen;

Lad, never dam your body’s itch

When loveliness is seen.

For there is ample room for bliss

In pride in clean, brown limbs,

And lips know better how to kiss

Than how to raise white hymns.

And when your body’s death gives birth

To soil for spring to crown,

Men will not ask if that rare earth

Was white flesh once, or brown.

[9]

Black Magdalens

THESE have no Christ to spit and stoop

To write upon the sand,

Inviting him that has not sinned

To raise the first rude hand.

And if he came they could not buy

Rich ointment for his feet,

The body’s sale scarce yields enough

To let the body eat.

The chaste clean ladies pass them by

And draw their skirts aside,

But Magdalens have a ready laugh;

They wrap their wounds in pride.

They fare full ill since Christ forsook

The cross to mount a throne,

And Virtue still is stooping down

To cast the first hard stone.

[10]

Atlantic City Waiter

WITH subtle poise he grips his tray

Of delicate things to eat;

Choice viands to their mouths half way,

The ladies watch his feet

Go carving dexterous avenues

Through sly intricacies;

Ten thousand years on jungle clues

Alone shaped feet like these.

For him to be humble who is proud

Needs colder artifice;

Though half his pride is disavowed,

In vain the sacrifice.

Sheer through his acquiescent mask

Of bland gentility,

The jungle flames like a copper cask

Set where the sun strikes free.

[11]

Near White

AMBIGUOUS of race they stand,

By one disowned, scorned of another,

Not knowing where to stretch a hand,

And cry, “My sister” or “My brother.”

[12]

Tableau

For Donald Duff

LOCKED arm in arm they cross the way,

The black boy and the white,

The golden splendor of the day,

The sable pride of night.

From lowered blinds the dark folk stare,

And here the fair folk talk,

Indignant that these two should dare

In unison to walk.

Oblivious to look and word

They pass, and see no wonder

That lightning brilliant as a sword

Should blaze the path of thunder.

[13]

Harlem Wine

THIS is not water running here,

These thick rebellious streams

That hurtle flesh and bone past fear

Down alleyways of dreams.

This is a wine that must flow on

Not caring how nor where,

So it has ways to flow upon

Where song is in the air.

So it can woo an artful flute

With loose, elastic lips,

Its measurement of joy compute

With blithe, ecstatic hips.

[14]

Simon the Cyrenian Speaks

HE never spoke a word to me,

And yet He called my name;

He never gave a sign to me,

And yet I knew and came.

At first I said, “I will not bear

His cross upon my back;

He only seeks to place it there

Because my skin is black.”

But He was dying for a dream,

And He was very meek,

And in His eyes there shone a gleam

Men journey far to seek.

It was Himself my pity bought;

I did for Christ alone

What all of Rome could not have wrought

With bruise of lash or stone.

[15]

Incident

(For Eric Walrond)

ONCE riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That’s all that I remember.

[16]

Two Who Crossed a Line

(She Crosses)

FROM where she stood the air she craved

Smote with the smell of pine;

It was too much to bear; she braved

Her gods and crossed the line.

And we were hurt to see her go,

With her fair face and hair,

And veins too thin and blue to show

What mingled blood flowed there.

We envied her a while, who still

Pursued the hated track;

Then we forgot her name, until

One day her shade came back.

Calm as a wave without a crest,

Sorrow-proud and sorrow-wise,

With trouble sucking at her breast,

With tear-disdainful eyes,

She slipped into her ancient place,

And, no word asked, gave none;

Only the silence in her face

Said seats were dear in the sun.

[17]

Two Who Crossed a Line

(He Crosses)

HE rode across like a cavalier,

Spurs clicking hard and loud;

And where he tarried dropped his tear

On heads he left low-bowed.

But, “Even Stephen,” he cried, and struck

His steed an urgent blow;

He swore by youth he was a buck

With savage oats to sow.

To even up some standing scores,

From every flower bed

He passed, he plucked by threes and fours

Till wheels whirled in his head.

But long before the drug could tell,

He took his anodyne;

With scornful grace, he bowed farewell

And retraversed the line.

[18]

Saturday’s Child

SOME are teethed on a silver spoon,

With the stars strung for a rattle;

I cut my teeth as the black raccoon—

For implements of battle.

Some are swaddled in silk and down,

And heralded by a star;

They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown

On a night that was black as tar.

For some, godfather and goddame

The opulent fairies be;

Dame Poverty gave me my name,

And Pain godfathered me.

For I was born on Saturday—

“Bad time for planting a seed,”

Was all my father had to say,

And, “One mouth more to feed.”

Death cut the strings that gave me life,

And handed me to Sorrow,

The only kind of middle wife

My folks could beg or borrow.

[19]

The Dance of Love

(After reading René Maran’s “Batouala”)

ALL night we danced upon our windy hill,

Your dress a cloud of tangled midnight hair,

And love was much too much for me to wear

My leaves; the killer roared above his kill,

But you danced on, and when some star would spill

Its red and white upon you whirling there,

I sensed a hidden beauty in the air;

Though you danced on, my heart and I stood still.

But suddenly a bit of morning crept

Along your trembling sides of ebony;

I saw the tears your tired limbs had wept,

And how your breasts heaved high, how languidly

Your dark arms moved; I drew you close to me;

We flung ourselves upon our hill and slept.

[20]

Pagan Prayer

NOT for myself I make this prayer,

But for this race of mine

That stretches forth from shadowed places

Dark hands for bread and wine.

For me, my heart is pagan mad,

My feet are never still,

But give them hearths to keep them warm

In homes high on a hill.

For me, my faith lies fallowing,

I bow not till I see,

But these are humble and believe;

Bless their credulity.

For me, I pay my debts in kind,

And see no better way,

Bless these who turn the other cheek

For love of you, and pray.

Our Father, God, our Brother, Christ—

So are we taught to pray;

Their kinship seems a little thing

Who sorrow all the day.

[21]

Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ,

Or are we bastard kin,

That to our plaints your ears are closed,

Your doors barred from within?

Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ,

Retrieve my race again;

So shall you compass this black sheep,

This pagan heart. Amen.

[22]

Wisdom Cometh With the Years

NOW I am young and credulous,

My heart is quick to bleed

At courage in the tremulous

Slow sprouting of a seed.

Now I am young and sensitive,

Man’s lack can stab me through;

I own no stitch I would not give

To him that asked me to.

Now I am young and a fool for love,

My blood goes mad to see

A brown girl pass me like a dove

That flies melodiously.

Let me be lavish of my tears,

And dream that false is true;

Though wisdom cometh with the years,

The barren days come, too.

[23]

To My Fairer Brethren

THOUGH I score you with my best,

Treble circumstance

Must confirm the verdict, lest

It be laid to chance.

Insufficient that I match you

Every coin you flip;

Your demand is that I catch you

Squarely on the hip.

Should I wear my wreaths a bit

Rakishly and proud,

I have bought my right to it;

Let it be allowed.

[24]

Fruit of the Flower

MY father is a quiet man

With sober, steady ways;

For simile, a folded fan;

His nights are like his days.

My mother’s life is puritan,

No hint of cavalier,

A pool so calm you’re sure it can

Have little depth to fear.

And yet my father’s eyes can boast

How full his life has been;

There haunts them yet the languid ghost

Of some still sacred sin.

And though my mother chants of God,

And of the mystic river,

I’ve seen a bit of checkered sod

Set all her flesh aquiver.

Why should he deem it pure mischance

A son of his is fain

To do a naked tribal dance

Each time he hears the rain?

[25]

Why should she think it devil’s art

That all my songs should be

Of love and lovers, broken heart,

And wild sweet agony?

Who plants a seed begets a bud,

Extract of that same root;

Why marvel at the hectic blood

That flushes this wild fruit?

[26]

The Shroud of Color

(For Llewellyn Ransom)

“LORD, being dark,” I said, “I cannot bear

The further touch of earth, the scented air;

Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair

My color shrouds me in, I am as dirt

Beneath my brother’s heel; there is a hurt

In all the simple joys which to a child

Are sweet; they are contaminate, defiled

By truths of wrongs the childish vision fails

To see; too great a cost this birth entails.

I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter than

The worth of bearing it, just to be man.

I am not brave enough to pay the price

In full; I lack the strength to sacrifice.

I who have burned my hands upon a star,

And climbed high hills at dawn to view the far

Illimitable wonderments of earth,

For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth,

For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat

[27]

Till all the world was sea, and I a boat

Unmoored, on what strange quest I willed to float;

Who wore a many-colored coat of dreams,

Thy gift, O Lord—I whom sun-dabbled streams

Have washed, whose bare brown thighs have held the sun

Incarcerate until his course was run,

I who considered man a high-perfected

Glass where loveliness could lie reflected,

Now that I sway athwart Truth’s deep abyss,

Denuding man for what he was and is,

Shall breath and being so inveigle me

That I can damn my dreams to hell, and be

Content, each new-born day, anew to see

The steaming crimson vintage of my youth

Incarnadine the altar-slab of Truth?

Or hast Thou, Lord, somewhere I cannot see,

A lamb imprisoned in a bush for me?

Not so? Then let me render one by one

Thy gifts, while still they shine; some little sun

Yet gilds these thighs; my coat, albeit worn,

Still holds its colors fast; albeit torn,

[28]

My heart will laugh a little yet, if I

May win of Thee this grace, Lord: on this high

And sacrificial hill ’twixt earth and sky,

To dream still pure all that I loved, and die.

There is no other way to keep secure

My wild chimeras; grave-locked against the lure

Of Truth, the small hard teeth of worms, yet less

Envenomed than the mouth of Truth, will bless

Them into dust and happy nothingness.

Lord, Thou art God; and I, Lord, what am I

But dust? With dust my place. Lord, let me die.”

Across the earth’s warm, palpitating crust

I flung my body in embrace; I thrust

My mouth into the grass and sucked the dew,

Then gave it back in tears my anguish drew;

So hard I pressed against the ground, I felt

The smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smelt

The next year’s flowering; all this to speed

My body’s dissolution, fain to feed

The worms. And so I groaned, and spent my strength

[29]

Until, all passion spent, I lay full length

And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing.

So lay till lifted on a great black wing

That had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunk

To hamper it; with me all time had sunk

Into oblivion; when I awoke

The wing hung poised above two cliffs that broke

The bowels of the earth in twain, and cleft

The seas apart. Below, above, to left,

To right, I saw what no man saw before:

Earth, hell, and heaven; sinew, vein, and core.

All things that swim or walk or creep or fly,

All things that live and hunger, faint and die,

Were made majestic then and magnified

By sight so clearly purged and deified.

The smallest bug that crawls was taller than

A tree, the mustard seed loomed like a man.

The earth that writhes eternally with pain

Of birth, and woe of taking back her slain,

Laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight,

And all was struggle, gasping breath, and fight.

A blind worm here dug tunnels to the light,

And there a seed, racked with heroic pain,

Thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain;

[30]

It climbed; it died; the old love conquered me

To weep the blossom it would never be.

But here a bud won light; it burst and flowered

Into a rose whose beauty challenged, “Coward!”

There was no thing alive save only I

That held life in contempt and longed to die.

And still I writhed and moaned, “The curse, the curse,

Than animated death, can death be worse?”

“Dark child of sorrow, mine no less, what art

Of mine can make thee see and play thy part?

The key to all strange things is in thy heart.”

What voice was this that coursed like liquid fire

Along my flesh, and turned my hair to wire?

I raised my burning eyes, beheld a field

All multitudinous with carnal yield,

A grim ensanguined mead whereon I saw

Evolve the ancient fundamental law

Of tooth and talon, fist and nail and claw.

There with the force of living, hostile hills

Whose clash the hemmed-in vale with clamor fills,

[31]

With greater din contended fierce majestic wills

Of beast with beast, of man with man, in strife

For love of what my heart despised, for life

That unto me at dawn was now a prayer

For night, at night a bloody heart-wrung tear

For day again; for this, these groans

From tangled flesh and interlockèd bones.

And no thing died that did not give

A testimony that it longed to live.

Man, strange composite blend of brute and god,

Pushed on, nor backward glanced where last he trod.

He seemed to mount a misty ladder flung

Pendant from a cloud, yet never gained a rung

But at his feet another tugged and clung.

My heart was still a pool of bitterness,

Would yield nought else, nought else confess.

I spoke (although no form was there

To see, I knew an ear was there to hear),

“Well, let them fight; they can whose flesh is fair.”

Crisp lightning flashed; a wave of thunder shook

[32]

My wing; a pause, and then a speaking, “Look.”

I scarce dared trust my ears or eyes for awe

Of what they heard, and dread of what they saw;

For, privileged beyond degree, this flesh

Beheld God and His heaven in the mesh

Of Lucifer’s revolt, saw Lucifer

Glow like the sun, and like a dulcimer

I heard his sin-sweet voice break on the yell

Of God’s great warriors: Gabriel,

Saint Clair and Michael, Israfel and Raphael.

And strange it was to see God with His back

Against a wall, to see Christ hew and hack

Till Lucifer, pressed by the mighty pair,

And losing inch by inch, clawed at the air

With fevered wings; then, lost beyond repair,

He tricked a mass of stars into his hair;

He filled his hands with stars, crying as he fell,

“A star’s a star although it burns in hell.”

So God was left to His divinity,

Omnipotent at that most costly fee.

There was a lesson here, but still the clod

In me was sycophant unto the rod,

[33]

And cried, “Why mock me thus? Am I a god?”

“One trial more: this failing, then I give

You leave to die; no further need to live.”

Now suddenly a strange wild music smote

A chord long impotent in me; a note

Of jungles, primitive and subtle, throbbed

Against my echoing breast, and tom-toms sobbed

In every pulse-beat of my frame. The din

A hollow log bound with a python’s skin

Can make wrought every nerve to ecstasy,

And I was wind and sky again, and sea,

And all sweet things that flourish, being free.

Till all at once the music changed its key.

And now it was of bitterness and death,

The cry the lash extorts, the broken breath

Of liberty enchained; and yet there ran

Through all a harmony of faith in man,

A knowledge all would end as it began.

All sights and sounds and aspects of my race

Accompanied this melody, kept pace

With it; with music all their hopes and hates

[34]

Were charged, not to be downed by all the fates.

And somehow it was borne upon my brain

How being dark, and living through the pain

Of it, is courage more than angels have. I knew

What storms and tumults lashed the tree that grew

This body that I was, this cringing I

That feared to contemplate a changing sky,

This that I grovelled, whining, “Let me die,”

While others struggled in Life’s abattoir.

The cries of all dark people near or far

Were billowed over me, a mighty surge

Of suffering in which my puny grief must merge

And lose itself; I had no further claim to urge

For death; in shame I raised my dust-grimed head,

And though my lips moved not, God knew I said,

“Lord, not for what I saw in flesh or bone

Of fairer men; not raised on faith alone;

Lord, I will live persuaded by mine own.

I cannot play the recreant to these;

My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.”

[35]

With the whiz of a sword that severs space,

The wing dropped down at a dizzy pace,

And flung me on my hill flat on my face;

Flat on my face I lay defying pain,

Glad of the blood in my smallest vein,

And in my hands I clutched a loyal dream,

Still spitting fire, bright twist and coil and gleam,

And chiselled like a hound’s white tooth.

“Oh, I will match you yet,” I cried, “to truth.”

Right glad I was to stoop to what I once had spurned,

Glad even unto tears; I laughed aloud; I turned

Upon my back, and though the tears for joy would run,

My sight was clear; I looked and saw the rising sun.

[36]

Heritage

(For Harold Jackman)

WHAT is Africa to me:

Copper sun or scarlet sea,

Jungle star or jungle track,

Strong bronzed men, or regal black

Women from whose loins I sprang

When the birds of Eden sang?

One three centuries removed

From the scenes his fathers loved,

Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,

What is Africa to me?

So I lie, who all day long

Want no sound except the song

Sung by wild barbaric birds

Goading massive jungle herds,

Juggernauts of flesh that pass

Trampling tall defiant grass

Where young forest lovers lie,

Plighting troth beneath the sky.

So I lie, who always hear,

Though I cram against my ear

Both my thumbs, and keep them there,

[37]

Great drums throbbing through the air.

So I lie, whose fount of pride,

Dear distress, and joy allied,

Is my somber flesh and skin,

With the dark blood dammed within

Like great pulsing tides of wine

That, I fear, must burst the fine

Channels of the chafing net

Where they surge and foam and fret.

Africa? A book one thumbs

Listlessly, till slumber comes.

Unremembered are her bats

Circling through the night, her cats

Crouching in the river reeds,

Stalking gentle flesh that feeds

By the river brink; no more

Does the bugle-throated roar

Cry that monarch claws have leapt

From the scabbards where they slept.

Silver snakes that once a year

Doff the lovely coats you wear,

Seek no covert in your fear

Lest a mortal eye should see;

What’s your nakedness to me?

Here no leprous flowers rear

Fierce corollas in the air;

[38]

Here no bodies sleek and wet,

Dripping mingled rain and sweat,

Tread the savage measures of

Jungle boys and girls in love.

What is last year’s snow to me,

Last year’s anything? The tree

Budding yearly must forget

How its past arose or set—

Bough and blossom, flower, fruit,

Even what shy bird with mute

Wonder at her travail there,

Meekly labored in its hair.

One three centuries removed

From the scenes his fathers loved,

Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,

What is Africa to me?

So I lie, who find no peace

Night or day, no slight release

From the unremittant beat

Made by cruel padded feet

Walking through my body’s street.

Up and down they go, and back,

Treading out a jungle track.

So I lie, who never quite

Safely sleep from rain at night—

I can never rest at all

[39]

When the rain begins to fall;

Like a soul gone mad with pain

I must match its weird refrain;

Ever must I twist and squirm,

Writhing like a baited worm,

While its primal measures drip

Through my body, crying, “Strip!

Doff this new exuberance.

Come and dance the Lover’s Dance!”

In an old remembered way

Rain works on me night and day.

Quaint, outlandish heathen gods

Black men fashion out of rods,

Clay, and brittle bits of stone,

In a likeness like their own,

My conversion came high-priced;

I belong to Jesus Christ,

Preacher of humility;

Heathen gods are naught to me.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

So I make an idle boast;

Jesus of the twice-turned cheek,

Lamb of God, although I speak

With my mouth thus, in my heart

Do I play a double part.

[40]

Ever at Thy glowing altar

Must my heart grow sick and falter,

Wishing He I served were black,

Thinking then it would not lack

Precedent of pain to guide it,

Let who would or might deride it;

Surely then this flesh would know

Yours had borne a kindred woe.

Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,

Daring even to give You

Dark despairing features where,

Crowned with dark rebellious hair,

Patience wavers just so much as

Mortal grief compels, while touches

Quick and hot, of anger, rise

To smitten cheek and weary eyes.

Lord, forgive me if my need

Sometimes shapes a human creed.

All day long and all night through,

One thing only must I do:

Quench my pride and cool my blood,

Lest I perish in the flood.

Lest a hidden ember set

Timber that I thought was wet

Burning like the dryest flax,

[41]

Melting like the merest wax,

Lest the grave restore its dead.

Not yet has my heart or head

In the least way realized

They and I are civilized.

[42]

[43]

Epitaphs

[44]

[45]

For a Poet

I HAVE wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,

And laid them away in a box of gold;

Where long will cling the lips of the moth,

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth;

I hide no hate; I am not even wroth

Who found earth’s breath so keen and cold;

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,

And laid them away in a box of gold.

[46]

For My Grandmother

THIS lovely flower fell to seed;

Work gently, sun and rain;

She held it as her dying creed

That she would grow again.

[47]

For a Cynic

BIRTH is a crime

All men commit;

Life gives them time

To atone for it;

Death ends the rhyme

As the price for it.

[48]

For a Singer

DEATH clogged this flute

At its highest note;

Song sleeps here mute

In this breathless throat.

[49]

For a Virgin

FOR forty years I shunned the lust

Inherent in my clay;

Death only was so amorous

I let him have his way.

[50]

For a Lady I Know

SHE even thinks that up in heaven

Her class lies late and snores,

While poor black cherubs rise at seven

To do celestial chores.

[51]

For a Lovely Lady

A CREATURE slender as a reed,

And sad-eyed as a doe

Lies here (but take my word for it,

And do not pry below).

[52]

For an Atheist

MOUNTAINS cover me like rain,

Billows whirl and rise;

Hide me from the stabbing pain

In His reproachful eyes.

[53]

For an Evolutionist and His Opponent

SHOWING that our ways agreed,

Death is proof enough;

Body seeks the primal clay,

Soul transcends the slough.

[54]

For an Anarchist

WHAT matters that I stormed and swore?

Not Samson with an ass’s jaw,

Not though a forest of hair he wore,

Could break death’s adamantine law.

[55]

For a Magician

I WHOSE magic could explore

Ways others might not guess or see,

Now am barred behind a door

That has no “Open Sesame.”

[56]

For a Pessimist

HE wore his coffin for a hat,

Calamity his cape,

While on his face a death’s-head sat

And waved a bit of crape.

[57]

For a Mouthy Woman

GOD and the devil still are wrangling

Which should have her, which repel;

God wants no discord in his heaven;

Satan has enough in hell.

[58]

For a Philosopher

HERE lies one who tried to solve

The riddle of being and breath:

The wee blind mole that gnaws his bones

Tells him the answer is death.

[59]

For an Unsuccessful Sinner

I BOASTED my sins were sure to sink me

Out of all sound and sight of glory;

And the most I’ve won for all my pains

Is a century of purgatory.

[60]

For a Fool

ON earth the wise man makes the rules,

And is the fool’s adviser,

But here the wise are as the fools,

(And no man is the wiser).

[61]

For One Who Gayly Sowed His Oats

MY days were a thing for me to live,

For others to deplore;

I took of life all it could give:

Rind, inner fruit, and core.

[62]

For a Skeptic

BLOOD-BROTHER unto Thomas whose

Weak faith doubt kept in trammels,

His little credence strained at gnats—

But grew robust on camels.

[63]

For a Fatalist

LIFE ushers some as heirs-elect

To weather wind and gale;

Here lies a man whose ships were wrecked

Ere he could hoist a sail.

[64]

For Daughters of Magdalen

OURS is the ancient story:

Delicate flowers of sin,

Lilies, arrayed in glory,

That would not toil nor spin.

[65]

For a Wanton

TO men no more than so much cover

For them to doff or try,

I found in Death a constant lover:

Here in his arms I lie.

[66]

For a Preacher

VANITY of vanities,

All is vanity; yea,

Even the rod He flayed you with

Crumbled and turned to clay.

[67]

For One Who Died Singing of Death

HE whose might you sang so well

Living, will not let you rust:

Death has set the golden bell

Pealing in the courts of dust.

[68]

For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty

NOT writ in water, nor in mist,

Sweet lyric throat, thy name;

Thy singing lips that cold death kissed

Have seared his own with flame.

[69]

For Hazel Hall, American Poet

SOUL-TROUBLED at the febrile ways of breath,

Her timid breast shot through with faint alarm,

“Yes, I’m a stranger here,” she said to Death,

“It’s kind of you to let me take your arm.”

[70]

For Paul Laurence Dunbar

BORN of the sorrowful of heart,

Mirth was a crown upon his head;

Pride kept his twisted lips apart

In jest, to hide a heart that bled.

[71]

For Joseph Conrad

NOT of the dust, but of the wave

His final couch should be;

They lie not easy in a grave

Who once have known the sea.

How shall earth’s meagre bed enthrall

The hardiest seaman of them all?

[72]

For Myself

WHAT’S in this grave is worth your tear;

There’s more than the eye can see;

Folly and Pride and Love lie here

Buried alive with me.

[73]

All the Dead

PRIEST and layman, virgin, strumpet,

Good and ill commingled sleep,

Waiting till the dreadful trumpet

Separates the wolves and sheep.

[74]

[75]

For Love’s Sake

[76]

[77]

Oh, for a Little While Be Kind

(For Ruth Marie)

OH, for a little while be kind to me

Who stand in such imperious need of you,

And for a fitful space let my head lie

Happily on your passion’s frigid breast.

Although yourself no more resigned to me

Than on all bitter yesterdays I knew,

This half a loaf from sumptuous crumbs your shy

Reneging hand lets fall shall make me blest.

The sturdy homage of a love that throws

Its strength about you, dawn and dusk, at bed

And board, is not for scorn. When all is said

With final amen certitude, who knows

But Dives found a matchless fragrance fled

When Lazarus no longer shocked his nose?

[78]

If You Should Go

LOVE, leave me like the light,

The gently passing day;

We would not know, but for the night,

When it has slipped away.

Go quietly; a dream,

When done, should leave no trace

That it has lived, except a gleam

Across the dreamer’s face.

[79]

To One Who Said Me Nay

THIS much the gods vouchsafe today:

That we two lie in the clover,

Watching the heavens dip and sway,

With galleons sailing over.

This much is granted for an hour:

That we are young and tender,

That I am bee and you are flower,

Honey-mouthed and swaying slender.

This sweet of sweets is ours now:

To wander through the land,

Plucking an apple from its bough

To toss from hand to hand.

No thing is certain, joy nor sorrow,

Except the hour we know it;

Oh, wear my heart today; tomorrow

Who knows where the winds will blow it?

[80]

Advice to Youth

(For Guillaume)

SINCE little time is granted here

For pride in pain or play,

Since blood soon cools before that Fear

That makes our prowess clay,

If lips to kiss are freely met,

Lad, be not proud nor shy;

There are no lips where men forget,

And undesiring lie.

[81]

Caprice

“I ’LL tell him, when he comes,” she said,

“Body and baggage, to go,

Though the night be darker than my hair,

And the ground be hard with snow.”

But when he came with his gay black head

Thrown back, and his lips apart,

She flipped a light hair from his coat,

And sobbed against his heart.

[82]

Sacrament

SHE gave her body for my meat,

Her soul to be my wine,

And prayed that I be made complete

In sunlight and starshine.

With such abandoned grace she gave

Of all that passion taught her,

She never knew her tidal wave

Cast bread on stagnant water.

[83]

Bread and Wine

FROM death of star to new star’s birth,

This ache of limb, this throb of head,

This sweaty shop, this smell of earth,

For this we pray, “Give daily bread.”

Then tenuous with dreams the night,

The feel of soft brown hands in mine,

Strength from your lips for one more fight:

Bread’s not so dry when dipped in wine.

[84]

Spring Reminiscence

“MY sweet,” you sang, and, “Sweet,” I sang,

And sweet we sang together,

Glad to be young as the world was young,

Two colts too strong for a tether.

Shall ever a spring be like that spring,

Or apple blossoms as white;

Or ever clover smell like the clover

We lay upon that night?

Shall ever your hand lie in my hand,

Pulsing to it, I wonder;

Or have the gods, being jealous gods,

Envied us our thunder?

[85]

Varia

[86]

[87]

Suicide Chant

I AM the seed

The Sower sowed;

I am the deed

His hand bestowed

Upon the world.

Censure me not

If a rank weed flood

The garden plot,

Instead of a bud

To be unfurled.

Bridle your blame

If the deed prove less

Than the bruited fame

With which it came

From nothingness.

The seed of a weed

Cannot be flowered,

Nor a hero’s deed

Spring from a coward.

[88]

Pull up the weed;

Bring plow and mower;

Then fetch new seed

For the hand of the Sower.

[89]

She of the Dancing Feet Sings

(To Ottie Graham)

“AND what would I do in heaven, pray,

Me with my dancing feet,

And limbs like apple boughs that sway

When the gusty rain winds beat?

And how would I thrive in a perfect place

Where dancing would be sin,

With not a man to love my face,

Nor an arm to hold me in?

The seraphs and the cherubim

Would be too proud to bend

To sing the faery tunes that brim

My heart from end to end.

The wistful angels down in hell

Will smile to see my face,

And understand, because they fell

From that all-perfect place.”

[90]

Judas Iscariot

I THINK when Judas’ mother heard

His first faint cry the night

That he was born, that worship stirred

Her at the sound and sight.

She thought his was as fair a frame

As flesh and blood had worn;

I think she made this lovely name

For him—“Star of my morn.”

As any mother’s son he grew

From spring to crimson spring;

I think his eyes were black, or blue,

His hair curled like a ring.

His mother’s heart-strings were a lute

Whereon he all day played;

She listened rapt, abandoned, mute,

To every note he made.

I think he knew the growing Christ,

And played with Mary’s son,

And where mere mortal craft sufficed,

There Judas may have won.

[91]

Perhaps he little cared or knew,

So folly-wise is youth,

That He whose hand his hand clung to

Was flesh-embodied Truth;

Until one day he heard young Christ,

With far-off eyes agleam,

Tell of a mystic, solemn tryst

Between Him and a dream.

And Judas listened, wonder-eyed,

Until the Christ was through,

Then said, “And I, though good betide,

Or ill, will go with you.”

And so he followed, heard Christ preach,

Saw how by miracle

The blind man saw, the dumb got speech,

The leper found him well.

And Judas in those holy hours

Loved Christ, and loved Him much,

And in his heart he sensed dead flowers

Bloom at the Master’s touch.

And when Christ felt the death hour creep

With sullen, drunken lurch,

He said to Peter, “Feed my sheep,

And build my holy church.”

[92]

He gave to each the special task

That should be his to do,

But reaching one, I hear him ask,

“What shall I give to you?”

Then Judas in his hot desire

Said, “Give me what you will.”

Christ spoke to him with words of fire,

“Then, Judas, you must kill

One whom you love, One who loves you

As only God’s son can:

This is the work for you to do

To save the creature man.”

“And men to come will curse your name,

And hold you up to scorn;

In all the world will be no shame

Like yours; this is love’s thorn.

It takes strong will of heart and soul,

But man is under ban.

Think, Judas, can you play this role

In heaven’s mystic plan?”

So Judas took the sorry part,

Went out and spoke the word,

And gave the kiss that broke his heart,

But no one knew or heard.

[93]

And no one knew what poison ate

Into his palm that day,

Where, bright and damned, the monstrous weight

Of thirty white coins lay.

It was not death that Judas found

Upon a kindly tree;

The man was dead long ere he bound

His throat as final fee.

And who can say if on that day

When gates of pearl swung wide,

Christ did not go His honored way

With Judas by His side?

I think somewhere a table round

Owns Jesus as its head,

And there the saintly twelve are found

Who followed where He led.

And Judas sits down with the rest,

And none shrinks from His hand,

For there the worst is as the best,

And there they understand.

And you may think of Judas, friend,

As one who broke his word,

[94]

Whose neck came to a bitter end

For giving up his Lord.

But I would rather think of him

As the little Jewish lad

Who gave young Christ heart, soul, and limb,

And all the love he had.

[95]

The Wise

(For Alain Locke)

DEAD men are wisest, for they know

How far the roots of flowers go,

How long a seed must rot to grow.

Dead men alone bear frost and rain

On throbless heart and heatless brain,

And feel no stir of joy or pain.

Dead men alone are satiate;

They sleep and dream and have no weight,

To curb their rest, of love or hate.

Strange, men should flee their company,

Or think me strange who long to be

Wrapped in their cool immunity.

[96]

Mary, Mother of Christ

THAT night she felt those searching hands

Grip deep upon her breast,

She laughed and sang a silly tune

To lull her babe to rest;

That night she kissed his coral lips

How could she know the rest?

[97]

Dialogue

Soul:

THERE is no stronger thing than song;

In sun and rain and leafy trees

It wafts the timid soul along

On crested waves of melodies.

Body: But leaves the body bare to feed

Its hunger with its very need.

Soul: Although the frenzied belly writhes,

Yet render up in song your tithes;

Song is the weakling’s oaken rod,

His Jacob’s ladder dropped from God.

Body: Song is not drink; song is not meat,

Nor strong, thick shoes for naked feet.

Soul: Who sings by unseen hands is fed

With honeyed milk and warm, white bread;

His ways in pastures green are led,

And perfumed oil illumes his head;

[98]

His cup with wine is surfeited,

And when the last low note is read,

He sings among the lipless dead

With singing stars to crown his head.

Body: But will song buy a wooden box

The length of me from toe to crown,

To keep me safe from carrion flocks

When singing’s done and lyre laid down?

[99]

In Memory of Col. Charles Young

ALONG the shore the tall, thin grass

That fringes that dark river,

While sinuously soft feet pass,

Begins to bleed and quiver.

The great dark voice breaks with a sob

Across the womb of night;

Above your grave the tom-toms throb,

And the hills are weird with light.

The great dark heart is like a well

Drained bitter by the sky,

And all the honeyed lies they tell

Come there to thirst and die.

No lie is strong enough to kill

The roots that work below;

From your rich dust and slaughtered will

A tree with tongues will grow.

[100]

To My Friends

YOU feeble few that hold me somewhat more

Than all I am; base clay and spittle joined

To shape an aimless whim substantial; coined

Amiss one idle hour, this heart, though poor,—

O golden host I count upon the ends

Of one bare hand, with fingers still to spare,—

Is rich enough for this: to harbor there

In opulence its frugal meed of friends.

Let neither lose his faith, lest by such loss

Each find insufferable his daily cross.

And be not less immovable to me,

Not less love-leal and staunch, than my heart is.

In brief, these fine heroics come to this,

My friends: if you are true, I needs must be.

[101]

Gods

I FAST and pray and go to church,

And put my penny in,

But God’s not fooled by such slight tricks,

And I’m not saved from sin.

I cannot hide from Him the gods

That revel in my heart,

Nor can I find an easy word

To tell them to depart:

God’s alabaster turrets gleam

Too high for me to win,

Unless He turns His face and lets

Me bring my own gods in.

[102]

To John Keats, Poet. At Spring Time[A]

(For Carl Van Vechten)

I CANNOT hold my peace, John Keats;

There never was a spring like this;

It is an echo, that repeats

My last year’s song and next year’s bliss.

I know, in spite of all men say

Of Beauty, you have felt her most.

Yea, even in your grave her way

Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,

Spring never was so fair and dear

As Beauty makes her seem this year.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,

I am as helpless in the toil

Of Spring as any lamb that bleats

To feel the solid earth recoil

Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats

Her tocsin call to those who love her,

And lo! the dogwood petals cover

[103]

Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek

White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover

About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,

While white and purple lilacs muster

A strength that bears them to a cluster

Of color and odor; for her sake

All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still,

John Keats, while Beauty summons us?

Somehow I feel your sensitive will

Is pulsing up some tremulous

Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves

Grow music as they grow, since your

Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves

For life that opens death’s dark door.

Though dust, your fingers still can push

The Vision Splendid to a birth,

Though now they work as grass in the hush

Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

“John Keats is dead,” they say, but I

Who hear your full insistent cry

In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,

Know John Keats still writes poetry.

[104]

And while my head is earthward bowed

To read new life sprung from your shroud,

Folks seeing me must think it strange

That merely spring should so derange

My mind. They do not know that you,

John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

[A] Spring, 1924

[105]

On Going

(For Willard Johnson)

A GRAVE is all too weak a thing

To hold my fancy long;

I’ll bear a blossom with the spring,

Or be a blackbird’s song,

I think that I shall fade with ease,

Melt into earth like snow,

Be food for hungry, growing trees,

Or help the lilies blow.

And if my love should lonely walk,

Quite of my nearness fain,

I may come back to her, and talk

In liquid words of rain.

[106]

Harsh World That Lashest Me

(For Walter White)

HARSH World that lashest me each day,

Dub me not cowardly because

I seem to find no sudden way

To throttle you or clip your claws.

No force compels me to the wound

Whereof my body bears the scar;

Although my feet are on the ground,

Doubt not my eyes are on a star.

You cannot keep me captive, World,

Entrammeled, chained, spit on, and spurned.

More free than all your flags unfurled,

I give my body to be burned.

I mount my cross because I will,

I drink the hemlock which you give

For wine which you withhold—and still,

Because I will not die, I live.

[107]

I live because an ember in

Me smoulders to regain its fire,

Because what is and what has been

Not yet have conquered my desire.

I live to prove the groping clod

Is surely more than simple dust;

I live to see the breath of God

Beatify the carnal crust.

But when I will, World, I can go,

Though triple bronze should wall me round,

Slip past your guard as swift as snow,

Translated without pain or sound.

Within myself is lodged the key

To that vast room of couches laid

For those too proud to live and see

Their dreams of light eclipsed in shade.

[108]

Requiescam

I AM for sleeping and forgetting

All that has gone before;

I am for lying still and letting

Who will beat at my door;

I would my life’s cold sun were setting

To rise for me no more.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

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