The Book of American Negro Poetry eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 148 pages of information about The Book of American Negro Poetry.

The Book of American Negro Poetry eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 148 pages of information about The Book of American Negro Poetry.

IF WE MUST DIE

If we must die—­let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot. 
If we must die—­oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

Oh, Kinsmen!  We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! 
What though before us lies the open grave? 
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but—­fighting back!

TO THE WHITE FIENDS

Think you I am not fiend and savage too? 
Think you I could not arm me with a gun
And shoot down ten of you for every one
Of my black brothers murdered, burnt by you? 
Be not deceived, for every deed you do
I could match—­out-match:  am I not Africa’s son,
Black of that black land where black deeds are done?

But the Almighty from the darkness drew
My soul and said:  Even thou shalt be a light
Awhile to burn on the benighted earth,
Thy dusky face I set among the white
For thee to prove thyself of highest worth;
Before the world is swallowed up in night,
To show thy little lamp:  go forth, go forth!

THE HARLEM DANCER

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day. 
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. 
Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls
Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;
But, looking at her falsely-smiling face
I knew her self was not in that strange place.

HARLEM SHADOWS

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
  In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
Its veil.  I see the shapes of girls who pass
  Eager to heed desire’s insistent call: 
Ah, little dark girls, who in slippered feet
  Go prowling through the night from street to street.

Through the long night until the silver break
  Of day the little gray feet know no rest,
Through the lone night until the last snow-flake
  Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast,
The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet
  Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.

Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way
  Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,
Has pushed the timid little feet of clay. 
  The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! 
Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
  In Harlem wandering from street to street.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Book of American Negro Poetry from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.