The Book of American Negro Poetry Part 8

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

IT WAS NOT FATE

It was not fate which overtook me, Rather a wayward, wilful wind That blew hot for awhile And then, as the even shadows came, blew cold.

What pity it is that a man grown old in life's dreaming Should stop, e'en for a moment, to look into a woman's eyes.

And I forgot!

Forgot that one's heart must be steeled against the east wind.

Life and death alike come out of the East: Life as tender as young gra.s.s, Death as dreadful as the sight of clotted blood.

I shall go back into the darkness, Not to dream but to seek the light again.

I shall go by paths, mayhap, On roads that wind around the foothills Where the plains are bare and wild And the pa.s.sers-by come few and far between.

I want the night to be long, the moon blind, The hills thick with moving memories, And my heart beating a breathless requiem For all the dead days I have lived.

When the Dawn comes--Dawn, deathless, dreaming-- I shall will that my soul must be cleansed of hate, I shall pray for strength to hold children close to my heart, I shall desire to build houses where the poor will know shelter, comfort, beauty.

And then may I look into a woman's eyes And find holiness, love and the peace which pa.s.seth understanding.

W.E. Burghardt Du Bois

A LITANY OF ATLANTA

Done at Atlanta, in the Day of Death, 1906

O Silent G.o.d, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days-- _Hear us, good Lord!_

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

We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men.

When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed: curse them as we curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and home.

_Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!_

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

_Thou knowest, good G.o.d!_

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

_Justice, O judge of men!_

Wherefore do we pray? Is not the G.o.d of the fathers dead? Have not seers seen in Heaven's halls Thine hea.r.s.ed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and rolling smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of endless dead?

_Awake, Thou that sleepest!_

Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless light, thru blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free--far from the cozenage, black hypocrisy and chaste prost.i.tution of this shameful speck of dust!

_Turn again, O Lord, leave us not to perish in our sin!_

From l.u.s.t of body and l.u.s.t of blood _Great G.o.d, deliver us!_

From l.u.s.t of power and l.u.s.t of gold, _Great G.o.d, deliver us!_

From the leagued lying of despot and of brute, _Great G.o.d, deliver us!_

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

_Bend us Thine ear, O Lord!_

In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but they--did they not wag their heads and leer and cry with b.l.o.o.d.y jaws: _Cease from Crime_! The word was mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while we do cure one.

_Turn again our captivity, O Lord!_

Behold this maimed and broken thing; dear G.o.d, it was an humble black man who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They told him: _Work and Rise_. He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but some one told how some one said another did--one whom he had never seen nor known.

Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked to shame, his children, to poverty and evil.

_Hear us, O Heavenly Father!_

Doth not this justice of h.e.l.l stink in Thy nostrils, O G.o.d? How long shall the mounting flood of innocent blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed brutes who do such deeds high on Thine altar, Jehovah Jireh, and burn it in h.e.l.l forever and forever!

_Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what we say!_

Bewildered we are, and pa.s.sion-tost, mad with the madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy Throne, we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, G.o.d, by the bones of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: _What meaneth this?_ Tell us the Plan; give us the Sign!

_Keep not thou silence, O G.o.d!_

Sit no longer blind, Lord G.o.d, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb suffering. Surely Thou too art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing?

_Ah! Christ of all the Pities!_

Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words. Thou art still the G.o.d of our black fathers, and in Thy soul's soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.

But whisper--speak--call, great G.o.d, for Thy silence is white terror to our hearts! The way, O G.o.d, show us the way and point us the path.

Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and without, the liar. Whither? To death?

_Amen! Welcome dark sleep!_

Whither? To life? But not this life, dear G.o.d, not this. Let the cup pa.s.s from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must, and it is red, Ah! G.o.d! It is a red and awful shape.

_Selah!_

In yonder East trembles a star.

_Vengeance is mine; I mill repay, saith the Lord!_

Thy will, O Lord, be done!

_Kyrie Eleison!_

Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words.

_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_

We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little children.

_We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!_

Our voices sink in silence and in night.

_Hear us, good Lord!_

In night, O G.o.d of a G.o.dless land!

_Amen!_