Part 1
Transcriber’s Notes
Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by ♦♠♥♣ symbols in the text and are shown immediately below the paragraph or section in which they appear.
Details and other notes may be found at the end of this eBook.
THE WEARY BLUES
_by_
LANGSTON HUGHES
_WITH AN INTRODUCTON BY CARL VAN VECHTEN_
[Illustration: logo]
NEW YORK ALFRED · A · KNOPF 1926
THE WEARY BLUES
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC · SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · ESPARTO PAPER MANUFACTURED IN SCOTLAND AND FURNISHED BY W. F. ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK · BOUND BY THE H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY MOTHER
I wish to thank the editors of _The Crisis_, _Opportunity_, _Survey Graphic_, _Vanity Fair_, _The World Tomorrow_ and _The Amsterdam News_ for having first published some of the poems in this book.
INTRODUCING LANGSTON HUGHES TO THE READER
_I_
_At the moment I cannot recall the name of any other person whatever who, at the age of twenty-three, has enjoyed so picturesque and rambling an existence as Langston Hughes. Indeed, a complete account of his disorderly and delightfully fantastic career would make a fascinating picaresque romance which I hope this young Negro will write before so much more befalls him that he may find it difficult to capture all the salient episodes within the limits of a single volume._
_Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, he had lived, before his twelfth year, in the City of Mexico, Topeka, Kansas, Colorado Springs, Charlestown, Indiana, Kansas City, and Buffalo. He attended Central High School, from which he graduated, at Cleveland, Ohio, while in the summer, there and in Chicago, he worked as delivery- and dummy-boy in hat-stores. In his senior year he was elected class poet and editor of the Year Book._
_After four years in Cleveland, he once more joined his father in Mexico, only to migrate to New York where he entered Columbia University. There, finding the environment distasteful, or worse, he remained till spring, when he quit, broke with his father and, with thirteen dollars in cash, went on his own. First, he worked for a truck-farmer on Staten Island; next, he delivered flowers for Thorley; at length he partially satisfied an insatiable craving to go to sea by signing up with an old ship anchored in the Hudson for the winter. His first real cruise as a sailor carried him to the Canary Islands, the Azores, and the West Coast of Africa, of which voyage he has written: “Oh, the sun in Dakar! Oh, the little black girls of Burutu! Oh, the blue, blue bay of Loanda! Calabar, the city lost in a forest; the long, shining days at sea, the masts rocking against the stars at night; the black Kru-boy sailors, taken at Freetown, bathing on deck morning and evening; Tom Pey and Haneo, whose dangerous job it was to dive under the seven-ton mahogany logs floating and bobbing at the ship’s side and fasten them to the chains of the crane; the vile houses of rotting women at Lagos; the desolation of the Congo; Johnny Walker, and the millions of whisky bottles buried in the sea along the West Coast; the daily fights on board, officers, sailors, everybody drunk; the timorous, frightened missionaries we carried as passengers; and George, the Kentucky colored boy, dancing and singing the Blues on the after-deck under the stars.”_
_Returning to New York with plenty of money and a monkey, he presently shipped again—this time for Holland. Again he came back to New York and again he sailed—on his twenty-second birthday: February 1, 1924. Three weeks later he found himself in Paris with less than seven dollars. However, he was soon provided for: a woman of his own race engaged him as doorman at her boîte de nuit. Later he was employed, first as second cook, then as waiter, at the Grand Duc, where the Negro entertainer, Florence, sang at this epoch. Here he made friends with an Italian family who carried him off to their villa at Desenzano on Lago di Garda where he passed a happy month, followed by a night in Verona and a week in Venice. On his way back across Italy his passport was stolen and he became a beach-comber in Genoa. He has described his life there to me: “Wine and figs and pasta. And sunlight! And amusing companions, dozens of other beach-combers roving the dockyards and water-front streets, getting their heads whacked by the Fascisti, and breaking one loaf of bread into so many pieces that nobody got more than a crumb. I lived in the public gardens along the water-front and slept in the Albergo Populare for two lire a night amidst the snores of hundreds of other derelicts.... I painted my way home as a sailor. It seems that I must have painted the whole ship myself. We made a regular ‘grand tour’: Livorno, Napoli (we passed so close to Capri I could have cried). Then all around Sicily—Catania, Messina, Palermo—the Lipari Islands, miserable little peaks of pumice stone out in the sea; then across to Spain, divine Spain! My buddy and I went on a spree in Valencia for a night and a day.... Oh, the sweet wine of Valencia!”_
_He arrived in New York on November 10, 1924. That evening I attended a dance given in Harlem by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some time during the course of the night, Walter White asked me to meet two young Negro poets. He introduced me to Countée Cullen and Langston Hughes. Before that moment I had never heard of either of them._
_II_
_I have merely sketched a primitive outline of a career as rich in adventures as a fruit-cake is full of raisins. I have already stated that I hope Langston Hughes may be persuaded to set it down on paper in the minutest detail, for the bull-fights in Mexico, the drunken gaiety of the Grand Duc, the delicately exquisite grace of the little black girls at Burutu, the exotic languor of the Spanish women at Valencia, the barbaric jazz dances of the cabarets in New York’s own Harlem, the companionship of sailors of many races and nationalities, all have stamped an indelible impression on the highly sensitized, poetic imagination of this young Negro, an impression which has found its initial expression in the poems assembled in this book._
_And also herein may be discerned that nostalgia for color and warmth and beauty which explains this boy’s nomadic instincts._
_“We should have a land of sun, Of gorgeous sun, And a land of fragrant water Where the twilight Is a soft bandanna handkerchief Of rose and gold, And not this land where life is cold,”_
_he sings. Again, he tells his dream:_
_“To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! whirl! whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening.... A tall, slim tree.... Night coming tenderly. Black like me.”_
_More of this wistful longing may be discovered in the poems entitled_ The South _and_ As I Grew Older. _His verses, however, are by no means limited to an exclusive mood; he writes caressingly of little black prostitutes in Harlem; his cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race in_ Cross _and_ The Jester; _he sighs, in one of the most successful of his fragile poems, over the loss of a loved friend. Always, however, his stanzas are subjective, personal. They are the (I had almost said informal, for they have a highly deceptive air of spontaneous improvisation) expression of an essentially sensitive and subtly illusive nature, seeking always to break through the veil that obscures for him, at least in some degree, the ultimate needs of that nature._
_To the Negro race in America, since the day when Phillis Wheatley indited lines to General George Washington and other aristocratic figures (for Phillis Wheatley never sang “My way’s cloudy,” or “By an by, I’m goin to lay down dis heavy load”) there have been born many poets. Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Countée Cullen, are a few of the more memorable names. Not the least of these names, I think, is that of Langston Hughes, and perhaps his adventures and personality offer the promise of as rich a fulfillment as has been the lot of any of the others._
Carl Van Vechten.
_New York._
_August 3, 1925._
CONTENTS
Introducing Langston Hughes to the reader ♦9 _by Carl Van Vechten_
Proem ♠19
THE WEARY BLUES
The Weary Blues 23 Jazzonia 25 Negro Dancers 26 The Cat and the Saxophone 27 Young Singer 28 Cabaret 29 To Midnight Nan at Leroy’s 30 To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead 31 Harlem Night Club 32 Nude Young Dancer 33 Young Prostitute 34 To a Black Dancer 35 Song for a Banjo Dance 36 Blues Fantasy 37 Lenox Avenue: Midnight 39
DREAM VARIATIONS
Dream Variations 43 Winter Moon 44 Poème d’Automne 45 Fantasy in Purple 46 March Moon 47 Joy 48
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
The Negro Speaks of Rivers ♥51 Cross 52 The Jester 53 The South 54 As I Grew Older 55 Aunt Sue’s Stories 57 Poem 58
A BLACK PIERROT
A Black Pierrot 61 Harlem Night Song 62 Songs to the Dark Virgin 63 Ardella 64 Poem—To the Black Beloved 65 When Sue Wears Red 66 Pierrot 67
WATER FRONT STREETS
Water Front Streets 71 A Farewell 72 Long Trip 73 Port Town 74 Sea Calm 75 Caribbean Sunset 76 Young Sailor 77 Seascape 78 Natcha 79 Sea Charm 80 Death of an Old Seaman 81
SHADOWS IN THE SUN
Beggar Boy 85 Troubled Woman 86 Suicide’s Note 87 Sick Room 88 Soledad 89 To the Dark Mercedes 90 Mexican Market Woman 91 After Many Springs 92 Young Bride 93 The Dream Keeper 94 Poem (To F. S.) 95
OUR LAND
Our Land 99 Lament for Dark Peoples 100 Afraid 101 Poem—For the Portrait of an African Boy 102 Summer Night 103 Disillusion 104 Danse Africaine 105 The White Ones 106 Mother to Son 107 Poem 108 Epilogue 109
♦ “15” replaced with “9” ♠ “13” replaced with “19” ♥ “50” replaced with “51”
PROEM
I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.
I’ve been a slave: Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean. I brushed the boots of Washington.
I’ve been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose. I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.
I’ve been a singer: All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime.
I’ve been a victim: The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. They lynch me now in Texas.
I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.
THE WEARY BLUES
THE WEARY BLUES
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway.... He did a lazy sway.... To the tune o’ those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man’s soul. O Blues! In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan— “Ain’t got nobody in all this world, Ain’t got nobody but ma self. I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’ And put ma troubles on the shelf.” Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more— “I got the Weary Blues And I can’t be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can’t be satisfied— I ain’t happy no mo’ And I wish that I had died.” And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
JAZZONIA
Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play. A dancing girl whose eyes are bold Lifts high a dress of silken gold.
Oh, singing tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
Were Eve’s eyes In the first garden Just a bit too bold? Was Cleopatra gorgeous In a gown of gold?
Oh, shining tree! Oh, silver rivers of the soul!
In a whirling cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play.
NEGRO DANCERS
“Me an’ ma baby’s Got two mo’ ways, Two mo’ ways to do de buck! Da, da, Da, da, da! Two mo’ ways to do de buck!”
Soft light on the tables, Music gay, Brown-skin steppers In a cabaret.
White folks, laugh! White folks, pray!
“Me an’ ma baby’s Got two mo’ ways, Two mo’ ways to do de buck!”
THE CAT AND THE SAXOPHONE (2 A.M.)
EVERYBODY Half-pint,— Gin? No, make it LOVES MY BABY corn. You like liquor, don’t you, honey? BUT MY BABY Sure. Kiss me, DON’T LOVE NOBODY daddy. BUT ME. Say! EVERYBODY Yes? WANTS MY BABY I’m your BUT MY BABY sweetie, ain’t I? DON’T WANT NOBODY Sure. BUT Then let’s ME, do it! SWEET ME. Charleston, mamma! !
YOUNG SINGER
One who sings “chansons vulgaires” In a Harlem cellar Where the jazz-band plays From dark to dawn Would not understand Should you tell her That she is like a nymph For some wild faun.
CABARET
Does a jazz-band ever sob? They say a jazz-band’s gay. Yet as the vulgar dancers whirled And the wan night wore away, One said she heard the jazz-band sob When the little dawn was grey.
TO MIDNIGHT NAN AT LEROY’S
Strut and wiggle, Shameless gal. Wouldn’t no good fellow Be your pal.
_Hear dat music.... Jungle night. Hear dat music.... And the moon was white._
Sing your Blues song, Pretty baby. You want lovin’ And you don’t mean maybe.
_Jungle lover.... Night black boy.... Two against the moon And the moon was joy._
Strut and wiggle, Shameless Nan. Wouldn’t no good fellow Be your man.
TO A LITTLE LOVER-LASS, DEAD
She Who searched for lovers In the night Has gone the quiet way Into the still, Dark land of death Beyond the rim of day.
Now like a little lonely waif She walks An endless street And gives her kiss to nothingness. Would God his lips were sweet!
HARLEM NIGHT CLUB
Sleek black boys in a cabaret. Jazz-band, jazz-band,— Play, plAY, PLAY! Tomorrow....who knows? Dance today!
White girls’ eyes Call gay black boys. Black boys’ lips Grin jungle joys.
Dark brown girls In blond men’s arms. Jazz-band, jazz-band,— Sing Eve’s charms!
White ones, brown ones, What do you know About tomorrow Where all paths go?
Jazz-boys, jazz-boys,— Play, plAY, PLAY! Tomorrow....is darkness. Joy today!
NUDE YOUNG DANCER
What jungle tree have you slept under, Midnight dancer of the jazzy hour? What great forest has hung its perfume Like a sweet veil about your bower?
What jungle tree have you slept under, Night-dark girl of the swaying hips? What star-white moon has been your mother? To what clean boy have you offered your lips?
YOUNG PROSTITUTE
Her dark brown face Is like a withered flower On a broken stem. Those kind come cheap in Harlem So they say.
TO A BLACK DANCER IN “THE LITTLE SAVOY”
Wine-maiden Of the jazz-tuned night, Lips Sweet as purple dew, Breasts Like the pillows of all sweet dreams, Who crushed The grapes of joy And dripped their juice On you?
SONG FOR A BANJO DANCE
Shake your brown feet, honey, Shake your brown feet, chile, Shake your brown feet, honey, Shake ’em swift and wil’— Get way back, honey, Do that low-down step. Walk on over, darling, Now! Come out With your left. Shake your brown feet, honey, Shake ’em, honey chile.
Sun’s going down this evening— Might never rise no mo’. The sun’s going down this very night— Might never rise no mo’— So dance with swift feet, honey, (The banjo’s sobbing low) Dance with swift feet, honey— Might never dance no mo’.
Shake your brown feet, Liza, Shake ’em, Liza, chile, Shake your brown feet, Liza, (The music’s soft and wil’) Shake your brown feet, Liza, (The banjo’s sobbing low) The sun’s going down this very night— Might never rise no mo’.
BLUES FANTASY
Hey! Hey! That’s what the Blues singers say. Singing minor melodies They laugh, Hey! Hey!
My man’s done left me, Chile, he’s gone away. My good man’s left me, Babe, he’s gone away. Now the cryin’ blues Haunts me night and day.
Hey!...Hey!
Weary, Weary, Trouble, pain. Sun’s gonna shine Somewhere Again.
I got a railroad ticket, Pack my trunk and ride.
Sing ’em, sister!
Got a railroad ticket, Pack my trunk and ride. And when I get on the train I’ll cast my blues aside.
Laughing, Hey!...Hey! Laugh a loud, Hey! Hey!
LENOX AVENUE: MIDNIGHT
The rhythm of life Is a jazz rhythm, Honey. The gods are laughing at us.
The broken heart of love, The weary, weary heart of pain,— Overtones, Undertones, To the rumble of street cars, To the swish of rain.
Lenox Avenue, Honey. Midnight, And the gods are laughing at us.
DREAM VARIATIONS
♦DREAM VARIATIONS
To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me,— That is my dream!
To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! whirl! whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening.... A tall, slim tree.... Night coming tenderly Black like me.
♦ “DREAM VARIATION” replaced with “DREAM VARIATIONS”
WINTER MOON
How thin and sharp is the moon tonight! How thin and sharp and ghostly white Is the slim curved crook of the moon tonight!
POÈME D’AUTOMNE
The autumn leaves Are too heavy with color. The slender trees On the Vulcan Road Are dressed in scarlet and gold Like young courtesans Waiting for their lovers. But soon The winter winds Will strip their bodies bare And then The sharp, sleet-stung Caresses of the cold Will be their only Love.
FANTASY IN PURPLE
Beat the drums of tragedy for me. Beat the drums of tragedy and death. And let the choir sing a stormy song To drown the rattle of my dying breath.
Beat the drums of tragedy for me, And let the white violins whir thin and slow, But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun To go with me to the darkness where I go.
MARCH MOON
The moon is naked. The wind has undressed the moon. The wind has blown all the cloud-garments Off the body of the moon And now she’s naked, Stark naked.
But why don’t you blush, O shameless moon? Don’t you know It isn’t nice to be naked?
JOY
I went to look for Joy, Slim, dancing Joy, Gay, laughing Joy, Bright-eyed Joy,— And I found her Driving the butcher’s cart In the arms of the butcher boy! Such company, such company, As keeps this young nymph, Joy!
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS
(To W. E. B. DuBois)
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
CROSS
My old man’s a white old man And my old mother’s black. If ever I cursed my white old man I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother And wished she were in hell, I’m sorry for that evil wish And now I wish her well.
My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack. I wonder where I’m gonna die, Being neither white nor black?
THE JESTER
In one hand I hold tragedy And in the other Comedy,— Masks for the soul. Laugh with me. You would laugh! Weep with me. You would weep! Tears are my laughter. Laughter is my pain. Cry at my grinning mouth, If you will. Laugh at my sorrow’s reign. I am the Black Jester, The dumb clown of the world, The booted, booted fool of silly men. Once I was wise. Shall I be wise again?
THE SOUTH
The lazy, laughing South With blood on its mouth. The sunny-faced South, Beast-strong, Idiot-brained. The child-minded South Scratching in the dead fire’s ashes For a Negro’s bones. Cotton and the moon, Warmth, earth, warmth, The sky, the sun, the stars, The magnolia-scented South. Beautiful, like a woman, Seductive as a dark-eyed whore, Passionate, cruel, Honey-lipped, syphilitic— That is the South. And I, who am black, would love her But she spits in my face. And I, who am black, Would give her many rare gifts But she turns her back upon me. So now I seek the North— The cold-faced North, For she, they say, Is a kinder mistress, And in her house my children May escape the spell of the South.
AS I GREW OLDER
It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun,— My dream.
And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose slowly, slowly, Dimming, Hiding, The light of my dream. Rose until it touched the sky,— The wall.
Shadow. I am black.
I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me. Only the thick wall. Only the shadow.
My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!
AUNT SUE’S STORIES
Aunt Sue has a head full of stories. Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories. Summer nights on the front porch Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom And tells him stories.
Black slaves Working in the hot sun, And black slaves Walking in the dewy night, And black slaves Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river Mingle themselves softly In the flow of old Aunt Sue’s voice, Mingle themselves softly In the dark shadows that cross and recross Aunt Sue’s stories.
And the dark-faced child, listening, Knows that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories. He knows that Aunt Sue Never got her stories out of any book at all, But that they came Right out of her own life.
And the dark-faced child is quiet Of a summer night Listening to Aunt Sue’s stories.
POEM
The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people.
Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
BLACK PIERROT
A BLACK PIERROT