Part 1
_The Black Christ_ & OTHER POEMS
_Other Books by_
COUNTEE CULLEN
COLOR
COPPER SUN
THE BALLAD OF THE BROWN GIRL
CAROLING DUSK An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets
_Harper & Brothers Publishers_
[Illustration]
THE BLACK CHRIST & OTHER POEMS
_By_ COUNTEE CULLEN
_With Decorations by_ CHARLES CULLEN
[Illustration: Publisher’s Colophon]
Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London mcmxxix
_The_ BLACK CHRIST _& Other Poems Copyright 1929, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the U. S. A._ *
FIRST EDITION
[Illustration]
_A Book for Three Friends_
EDWARD ROBERTA HAROLD
[Illustration]
¶ Acknowledgment for permission to reprint certain of these poems is made to the following magazines and collections in the pages of which they first appeared:
_The Century_ _The New Republic_ _Harper’s Magazine_ _Opportunity_ _The Crisis_ _Tambour_ _Ebony and Topaz_ _The Poetry Folio_ _Palms_ _The Archive_ _Time and Tide_ _The London Observer_
¶ Grateful appreciation is also conveyed to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation by the aid of whose grant many of these poems were written.
_Contents_
I VARIA
_To the Three for Whom the Book_ 3
_Tribute_ 9
_That Bright Chimeric Beast_ 10
_At the Etoile_ 12
_Two Epitaphs_ 14
_To an Unknown Poet_ 15
_Little Sonnet to Little Friends_ 16
_Mood_ 17
_Counter Mood_ 18
_The Wind and the Weather_ 19
_In the Midst of Life_ 20
_Minutely Hurt_ 22
_Never the Final Stone_ 23
_Light Lady_ 24
_By Their Fruits_ 25
_A Miracle Demanded_ 26
_Tongue-tied_ 27
_Ultima Verba_ 28
_The Foolish Heart_ 30
_A Wish_ 31
_For Helen Keller_ 32
_Asked and Answered_ 33
_Two Poets_ 34
_Not Sacco and Vanzetti_ 36
_A Song No Gentleman Would Sing to Any Lady_ 37
_Self Criticism_ 38
_A Thorn Forever in the Breast_ 39
_The Proud Heart_ 40
II INTERLUDE
_The Simple Truth_ 43
_Therefore, Adieu_ 44
_At a Parting_ 46
_Dictum_ 47
_Revelation_ 48
_Bright Bindings_ 49
_Ghosts_ 50
_Song in Spite of Myself_ 51
_Nothing Endures_ 52
_There Must Be Words_ 53
_One Day I Told My Love_ 54
_Lesson_ 55
_The Street Called Crooked_ 56
_The Law That Changeth Not_ 57
_Valedictory_ 58
III COLOR
_To Certain Critics_ 63
_Black Majesty_ 64
_Song of Praise_ 66
_The Black Christ_ 69
[Illustration]
_Varia_
[Illustration]
_To the Three for Whom the Book_
Once like a lady In a silken dress, The serpent might eddy Through the wilderness, Billow and glow And undulate In a rustling flow Of sinuous hate. Now dull-eyed and leaden, Of having lost His Eden He pays the cost. He shuns the tree That brought him low As grown to be Domestic; no Temptations dapple, From leaf to root, The modern apple Our meekest fruit. Dragon and griffin And basilisk Whose stare could stiffen, And the hot breath whisk From the overbold Braving a gaze So freezing cold, Who sings their praise These latter days? That venemous head On a woman fair,-- Medusa’s dead Of the hissing hair. No beasts are made Meet for the whir Of that sunken blade Excalibur. No smithies forge A shining sword Fit for the gorge Of a beast abhorred. Pale Theseus Would have no need, Were he with us, Of sword or thread; For long has been set The baleful star Of Pasiphaë’s pet, The Minotaur. Though they are dead, Those ancient ones, Each bestial head Dust under tons Of dust, new beasts Have come, their heirs, Claiming their feasts As the old did theirs. Clawless they claw, Fangless they rend; And the stony maw Crams on without end. Still are arrayed (But with brighter eyes) Stripling and maid For the sacrifice. We cannot spare This toll we pay Of the slender, the fair, The bright and the gay! Gold and black crown, Body slim and taut, How they go down ’Neath the juggernaut! Youth of the world, Like scythèd wheat, How they are hurled At the clay god’s feet! Hear them cry Holy To stone and to steel, See them bend lowly, Loyal and leal, Blood rendered and bone, To steel and to stone. They have forgot The stars and the sun, The grassy plot, And waters that run From rock to rock;-- Their only care Is to grasp a lock Of Mammon’s hair.
But you three rare Friends whom I love (With rhymes to swear The depths whereof) A book to you three Who have not bent The idolatrous knee, Nor worship lent To modern rites, Knowing full well How a just god smites The infidel; Three to whom Pan Is no mere myth, But a singing Man To be reckoned with;-- Witness him now In the mist and dew; Lean and hear how He carols to you: “Gather as a flower Living to your heart; Let the full shower Rankle and smart; Youth is the coffer Where all is hid; All age may offer Youth can outbid. Blind with your beauty The ranks of scorn, Take for a duty Pleasure; you were born Joy to incur. Ere the eyes are misted With a rheumy blur, Ere the speech is twisted To a throaty slur, Ere the cheeks are haggard; Ere the prick of the spur Finds you lame or laggard, Do not demur! When Time advances Terrible and lone, Recall there were dances Though they be flown. When Death plys the riddle To which all are mute, Remember the fiddle, The lyre and the flute.”
To three who will heed His song, nor brook That a god should plead In vain, a book.
_Tribute_
(To My Mother)
Because man is not virtuous in himself, Nor kind, nor given to sweet charities, Save goaded by the little kindling elf Of some dear face it pleasures him to please; Some men who else were humbled to the dust, Have marveled that the chastening hand should stay, And never dreamed they held their lives in trust To one the victor loved a world away. So I, least noble of a churlish race, Least kind of those by nature rough and crude, Have at the intervention of your face Spared him with whom was my most bitter feud One moment, and the next, a deed more grand, The helpless fly imprisoned in my hand.
_That Bright Chimeric Beast_
(For Lynn Riggs)
That bright chimeric beast Conceived yet never born, Save in the poet’s breast, The white-flanked unicorn, Never may be shaken From his solitude; Never may be taken In any earthly wood.
That bird forever feathered, Of its new self the sire, After aeons weathered, Reincarnate by fire, Falcon may not nor eagle Swerve from his eerie, Nor any crumb inveigle Down to an earthly tree.
That fish of the dread regime Invented to become The fable and the dream Of the Lord’s aquarium, Leviathan, the jointed Harpoon was never wrought By which the Lord’s anointed Will suffer to be caught.
Bird of the deathless breast, Fish of the frantic fin, That bright chimeric beast Flashing the argent skin,-- If beasts like these you’d harry, Plumb then the poet’s dream; Make it your aviary, Make it your wood and stream. There only shall the swish Be heard, of the regal fish; There like a golden knife Dart the feet of the unicorn, And there, death brought to life, The dead bird be reborn.
_At the Etoile_
(At the Unknown Soldier’s Grave in Paris)
If in the lists of life he bore him well, Sat gracefully or fell unhorsed in love, No tongue is dowered now with speech to tell Since he and death somewhere matched glove with glove.
What proud or humble union gave him birth, Not reckoning on this immortal bed, Is one more riddle that the cryptic earth Though knowing chooses to retain unsaid.
Since he was weak as other men,--or like Young Galahad as fair in thought as limb, Each bit of moving dust in France may strike Its breast in pride, knowing he stands for him.
[Illustration]
_Two Epitaphs_
1 For the Unknown Soldier (Paris)
Unknown but not unhonored rest, Symbol of all Time shall not reap; Not one stilled heart in that torn breast, But a myriad millions sleep.
2 For a Child Still-born
Here sleeps a spark that never burned, A seed not granted spring to bloom, A soul whose darkened pathway turned From tomb of flesh to dusty tomb.
_To an Unknown Poet_
“Love is enough,” I read somewhere; Lines some poor poet in his pride And poverty wrote on the air To ease his heart, and soothe his bride.
Something in me, child of an age Cold to the core, undeified, Warmed to my brother bard, this sage; And I too leaned upon my pride.
But pride I found can blind our eyes, And poverty is worse than pride. Love’s breed from both is a nest of lies; And singer of sweet songs, you lied.
_Little Sonnet to Little Friends_
Let not the proud of heart condemn Me that I mould my ways to hers, Groping for healing in a hem No wind of passion ever stirs; Nor let them sweetly pity me When I am out of sound and sight; They waste their time and energy; No mares encumber me at night.
Always a trifle fond and strange, And some have said a bit bizarre, Say, “Here’s the sun,” I would not change It for my dead and burnt-out star. Shine as it will, I have no doubt Some day the sun, too, may go out.
_Mood_
I think an impulse stronger than my mind May some day grasp a knife, unloose a vial, Or with a little leaden ball unbind The cords that tie me to the rank and file. My hands grow quarrelsome with bitterness, And darkly bent upon the final fray; Night with its stars upon a grave seems less Indecent than the too complacent day.
God knows I would be kind, let live, speak fair, Requite an honest debt with more than just, And love for Christ’s dear sake these shapes that wear A pride that had its genesis in dust,-- The meek are promised much in a book I know But one grows weary turning cheek to blow.
_Counter Mood_
Let this be scattered far and wide, laid low Upon the waters as they fall and rise, Be caught and carried by the winds that blow, Nor let it be arrested by the skies: I who am mortal say I shall not die; I who am dust of this am positive, That though my nights tend toward the grave, yet I Shall on some brighter day arise, and live.
Ask me not how I am oracular, Nor whence this arrogant assurance springs. Ask rather Faith the canny conjurer, (Who while your reason mocks him mystifies Winning the grudging plaudits of your eyes)-- How suddenly the supine egg has wings.
_The Wind and the Weather_
Forever shall not burn his tongue So glibly after this; Eternity was brief that hung Upon a passing kiss.
A year ago no metaphor Was rich enough to trace A single figure boasting more Allurement than her face.
One spring from then, small change we find In him; she still is fair. But in the other’s heart or mind Neither glows anywhere.
_In the Midst of Life_
Bud bursting from a tomb Of dust, this mortal knows In winter’s sterile womb For your despoiling grows What comes to every rose.
Grass so securely green, Sky-climbing corn so tall, Know in your length is seen What overtowers all: The shadow of the fall.
Yet blossoms with each spring Reopen; grasses sprout; And jaunty corn stalks fling New skeins of silk about. Nature is skilled to rout
Death’s every ambuscade; For man alone is poured The potion once essayed That sharper than a sword Destroys both mouth and gourd.
Deplore, lament, bewail; The sword seeks out the sheath; Though all things else may fail, Two things keep faith; this breath A while; and longer death.
_Minutely Hurt_
Since I was minutely hurt, Giant griefs and woes Only find me staunchly girt Against all other blows.
Once an atom cracks the heart All is done and said; Poison, steel, and fiery dart May then be buffeted.
[Illustration]
_Never the Final Stone_
Though by the glory of your lady’s face The riots of the sun and moon are quelled, Yet have the hands that fashioned her some grace Whereto perfection was allied, withheld.
The perfect wooer never speaks the word The object of his passion most would hear; So does expectance keep her wild feet spurred Toward that which ever is no more than near.
And daily from His lonely mountain-top, God sees us rear our Babels on the plain; Then with one stone to go, He lets us drop That we may want and strive for Him again.
_Light Lady_
They say when virtue slipped from her, Awakened by her fall, Sin seemed to work a miracle And made her soul grow tall.
Here with her penny papers by, We see how well she diced: Nothing to do but munch her gums And sing the love of Christ.
And now with alms for what she was Men stroke her ragged fur; When Death comes down this street, his face Will not be strange to her.
[Illustration]
_By Their Fruits_
I know a lover when I see one, And I can tell the way they fare: If those they dote on shed some sun, Or blow a cool and languid air.
Those that are loved, though niggardly, Move with a lively foot and eye; The others drag like men who see Their day and minute set to die.
_A Miracle Demanded_
This life is like a tree that flourisheth With fruit and flower, gay leaf and sprouting twig; But pestilence is in the wind’s warm breath, And at the roots the worms and mice grow big. The gardener, steady in his anxious claims, Who prunes for love, he says, and not for wage, Than simple care has more disastrous names, The most elect: Disease, Death, and Old Age.
Against such foes how shall a tree prevail To curb its consummation in decay, And like a tree shall men not strive and fail, Unless all wonders have not passed away? Renew an ancient vision, Lord, in me: Open the young man’s eyes that he may see.
_Tongue-tied_
You ask me why I love her, and you pause Magnanimous, that I may make reply Handing you deftly parceled every cause, Saying with confidence, “Lo, this is why.” But I am mute as if I had no tongue, Without reason as if I had no mind, This song the most familiar ever sung, Is lost to me like a leaf caught in the wind.
And so my tongue is tied; and so you smile Not knowing, little lover that you are, (Prattling, “’Twill wear, ’twill last so long a while”) The poet is compelled to love his star, Not knowing he could never tell you why Though silence makes inadequate reply.
_Ultima Verba_
Not being in my coffin, yet I know What suffocations crowd their breath who go Through some mischance alive into the grave; Not having any wound at all to shout Belief to Thomas who must see or doubt, I feel my life blood ebbing wave on wave.
And yet this knowledge cannot summon strength To rend apart the life-impaling length Of these strong boards that hold my body down; There is no cloth, no cool and radiant stuff (Save fashioned by your hand) healing enough To staunch this thin red flow in which I drown.
I am as one knowing what day he dies, Who looks in vain for mercy into eyes No glints of pity shade, no pardons stir, And thinks, “Although the trap by which I span This world and that another springs, this man Is both my judge and executioner.”
_The Foolish Heart_
“Be still, heart, cease those measured strokes; Lie quiet in your hollow bed; This moving frame is but a hoax To make you think you are not dead.”
Thus spake I to my body’s slave, With beats still to be answerèd; Poor foolish heart that needs a grave To prove to it that it is dead.
[Illustration]
_A Wish_
I hope when I have sung my rounds Of song, I shall have strength to slay The wish to chirp on any grounds, Content that silence hold her sway, My tongue not rolling futile sounds After my heart has had its say.
_For Helen Keller_
Against our puny sound and sight In vain the bells of Heaven ring, The Mystic Blossoms red and white May not intrigue our visioning.
For lest we handle, lest we touch, Lest carnally our minds condone, Our clumsy credence may not clutch The under or the overtone.
Her finer alchemy converts The clanging brass to golden-pealed, And for her sight the black earth spurts Hues never thought there unrevealed.
_Asked and Answered_
How have I found this favor in your sight, And will the flame burn steady to the end, Until we pass that dark and dangerous bend Where there is such a crying need for light; Or will it flare up now, flame-clear and bright, Sun-like its wealth so far and wide distend That nothing will remain for us to spend When toll is taken of the dismal night?
Why should I harrow up my mind like this To tarnish with a doubt each golden kiss? This is the Day most certainly. This bars Us now from any hidden darkness spun. Sufficient to the day let be the sun, And to the night the spear-points of the stars.
_Two Poets_
1
“The love-mad lark you sing of swooned,” they said, “And speared his bosom on a thorn of last Year’s rose; cease playing Orpheus; no blast You blow can raise Eurydice once dead. Our ears are cloyed with songs our fathers heard Of how your lady’s face and form were fair; Put by your fluting; swell a martial air, And spur us on with some prophetic word.”
So, wearying, he changed his tune, and won The praise of little men (who needed none) ... But oh to see him smile as when dawn blew A trumpet only he could hear, and dew He could not brush away besieged his eyes At sight of gulls departing from his skies.
2
“How could a woman love him; love, or wed?” And thinking only of his tuneless face And arms that held no hint of skill or grace, They shook a slow, commiserative head To see him amble by; but still they fed Their wilting hearts on his, were fired to race Once more, and panting at life’s deadly pace, They drank as wine the blood-in-song he shed.
Yet in the dream-walled room where last he lay, Soft garments gathered dust all night and day, As women whom he loved and sang of came To smooth his brow and wail a secret name. A rose placed in his hand by Guinevere Was drenched with Magdalen’s eternal tear.
_Not Sacco and Vanzetti_
These men who do not die, but send to death, These iron men whom mercy cannot bend Beyond the lettered law; what when their breath Shall suddenly and naturally end? What shall their final retribution be, What bloody silver then shall pay the tolls Exacted for this legal infamy When death indicts their stark immortal souls?
The day a slumbering but awful God, Before Time to Eternity is blown, Examines with the same unyielding rod These images of His with hearts of stone, These men who do not die, but death decree,-- These are the men I should not care to be.
_A Song No Gentleman Would Sing to Any Lady_
There were some things I might not know Had you not pedagogued me so; And these I thank you for; Now never shall a piquant face Cause my tutored heart a trace Of anguish any more.
Before your pleasure made me wise A simulacrum of disguise Masked the serpent and the dove; That I discern now hiss from coo, My heart’s full gratitude to you, Lady I had learned to love.
Before I knew love well I sang Many a polished pain and pang With proper bardic zeal; But now I know hearts do not break So easily, and though a snake Has made them, wounds may heal.
_Self Criticism_
Shall I go all my bright days singing, (A little pallid, a trifle wan) The failing note still vainly clinging To the throat of the stricken swan?
Shall I never feel and meet the urge To bugle out beyond my sense That the fittest song of earth is a dirge, And only fools trust Providence?
Than this better the reed never turned flute, Better than this no song, Better a stony silence, better a mute Mouth and a cloven tongue.
_A Thorn Forever in the Breast_
A hungry cancer will not let him rest Whose heart is loyal to the least of dreams; There is a thorn forever in his breast Who cannot take his world for what it seems; Aloof and lonely must he ever walk, Plying a strange and unaccustomed tongue, An alien to the daily round of talk, Mute when the sordid songs of earth are sung.
This is the certain end his dream achieves: He sweats his blood and prayers while others sleep, And shoulders his own coffin up a steep Immortal mountain, there to meet his doom Between two wretched dying men, of whom One doubts, and one for pity’s sake believes.
_The Proud Heart_
That lively organ, palpitant and red, Enrubied in the staid and sober breast, Telling the living man, “You are not dead Until this hammered anvil takes its rest,” My life’s timepiece wound to alarm some day The body to its need of box and shroud, Was meant till then to beat one haughty way; A crimson stroke should be no less than proud.
Yet this high citadel has come to grief, Been broken as an arrow drops its bird, Splintered as many ways as veins in a leaf At a woman’s laugh or a man’s harsh word; But being proud still strikes its hours in pain; The dead man lives, and none perceives him slain.
_Interlude_
[Illustration]
_The Simple Truth_
I know of all the words I speak or write, Precious and woven of a vibrant sound, None ever snares your faith, intrigues you quite, Or sends you soaring from the solid ground. You are the level-headed lover who Can match my fever while the kisses last, But you are never shaken through and through; Your roots are firm after the storm has passed.
I shall know nights of tossing in my sleep Fondling a hollow where a head should lie; But you a calm review, no tears to weep, No wounds to dress, no futile breaths to sigh. Ever this was the way of wind with flame: To harry it, then leave swift as it came.
_Therefore, Adieu_
Now you are gone, and with your unreturning goes All I had thought in spite of you would stay; Now draws forever to its unawakening close The beauty of the bright bandanna’d day.
Now sift in ombrous flakes and revolutions slow My dreams descending from my heady sky. The balm I kept to cool my grief in (leaves of snow) Now melts, with your departure flowing by.
I knew, indeed, the straight unswerving track the sun Took to your face (as other ecstasies) Yet I had thought some faith to me in them; they run From me to you as fly to honey, bees.
Avid, to leave me neither fevered joy nor ache, Only of soul and body vast unrest. Sun, moon, and stars should be enough; why must you take The feeling of the heart out of the breast?