Fifty Years

To America

O Black and Unknown Bards

O Southland

To Horace Bumstead

The Color Sergeant

The Black Mammy

Father, Father Abraham

Brothers

Fragment

The White Witch

Mother Night

The Young Warrior

The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face

From the Spanish of Placido

From the Spanish

From the German of Uhland

Before a Painting

I Hear the Stars Still Singing

Girl of Fifteen

The Suicide

Down by the Carib Sea
  I. Sunrise in the Tropics
 II.  Los Cigarillos
III.  Teestay
 IV.  The Lottery Girl
  V. The Dancing Girl
 VI.  Sunset in the Tropics

The Greatest of These Is War

A Mid-Day Dreamer

The Temptress

Ghosts of the Old Year

The Ghost of Deacon Brown

Lazy

Omar

Deep in the Quiet Wood

Voluptas

The Word of an Engineer

Life

Sleep

Prayer at Sunrise

The Gift to Sing

Morning, Noon and Night

Her Eyes Twin Pools

The Awakening

Beauty That Is Never Old

Venus in a Garden

Vashti

The Reward

JINGLES & CROONS

Sence You Went Away

Ma Lady’s Lips Am Like de Honey

Tunk

Nobody’s Lookin’ but de Owl an’ de Moon

You’s Sweet to Yo’ Mammy Jes de Same

A Plantation Bacchanal

July in Georgy

A Banjo Song

Answer to Prayer

Dat Gal o’ Mine

The Seasons

’Possum Song

Brer Rabbit, You’se de Cutes’ of ’Em All

An Explanation

De Little Pickaninny’s Gone to Sleep

The Rivals

INTRODUCTION

Of the hundred millions who make up the population of the United States ten millions come from a stock ethnically alien to the other ninety millions.  They are not descended from ancestors who came here voluntarily, in the spirit of adventure to better themselves or in the spirit of devotion to make sure of freedom to worship God in their own way.  They are the grandchildren of men and women brought here against their wills to serve as slaves.  It is only half-a-century since they received their freedom and since they were at last permitted to own themselves.  They are now American citizens, with the rights and the duties of other American citizens; and they know no language, no literature and no law other than those of their fellow citizens of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.