Chapter 11 of 11 · 2404 words · ~12 min read

Part 11

Ah, I know what happiness is, 107

Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze, 221

Ah, you are cruel, 47

ALEXANDER, LEWIS, 122

ALLEN, GEORGE LEONARD, 203

All that night I walked alone and wept, 169

All the time they were praying, 208

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, 83

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience, 37

_America_, 83

And God stepped out on space, 19

_And What Shall You Say?_, 103

_April Day, An_, 102

A silence slipping around like death, 46

As I was going to town, 227

A tree is more than a shadow, 170

_At the Carnival_, 53

_Auf Wiedersehen_, 189

_Baby Cobina_, 200

_Baker’s Boy, The_, 58

_Band of Gideon, The_, 103

Beat the drums of tragedy for me, 148

BENNETT, GWENDOLYN B., 153

_Black Madonna, The_, 177

_Black Man Talks of Reaping, A_, 165

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stone, 94

_Blight_, 170

Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold, 99

BONTEMPS, ARNA, 162

_Bottled_, 221

Bow down my soul in worship very low, 87

BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY, 31

BROOKS, JONATHAN HENDERSON, 192

Brother, come, 103

Brother to the firefly, 55

BROWN, STERLING A., 129

Brown Baby Cobina, 200

BRUCE, RICHARD, 205

Brushes and paints are all I have, 155

_Cavalier_, 207

Cemeteries are places for departed souls, 159

_Challenge_, 138

Chilled into a serenity, 110

_Close of Day, The_, 225

_Close Your Eyes_, 171

Come, brother, come. Let’s lift it, 97

_Confession_, 190

Consider me a memory, a dream that passed away, 79

COTTER, JOSEPH S., SR., 10

COTTER, JOSEPH S., JR., 99

_Cotton Song_, 97

Could I but retrace, 125

_Creation, The_, 19

_Creed_, 51

CULLEN, COUNTEE, 179

CUNEY, WARING, 207

CURTWRIGHT, WESLEY, 224

_Dance_, 229

_Dark Brother, The_, 124

_Day and Night_, 129

_Day-breakers, The_, 171

Dear, when we sit in that high, placid room, 66

_Death Bed, The_, 208

_Death Song_, 4

_Debt, The_, 9

DELANY, CLARISSA SCOTT, 140

_Del Cascar_, 33

De railroad bridge’s a sad song, 147

_Deserter, The_, 102

_Desolate_, 88

DICKINSON, BLANCHE TAYLOR, 105

Down at the hall at midnight sometimes, 229

_Dream Variation_, 149

_Dreams of the Dreamer, The_, 80

DU BOIS, WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT, 25

DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE, 1

_Dunbar_, 50

_Dusk_, 46

_Dust_, 210

Dust, through which proud blood once flowed, 210

_Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes_, 2

_Evening Song_, 94

_Exhortation: Summer, 1919_, 84

_Eyes of My Regret, The_, 37

_Face_, 98

_Fantasy_, 158

_Fantasy in Purple_, 148

Father John’s bread was made of rye, 31

FAUSET, JESSIE, 64

Flame-flower, Day-torch, Mauna Loa, 52

_Flame-Heart_, 85

_For the Candle Light_, 45

For this peculiar tint that paints my house, 92

_Four Epitaphs_, 186

Four great walls have hemmed me in, 110

_Four Walls_, 110

_Fragment_, 70

Frail children of sorrow, dethroned by a hue, 75

_From the Dark Tower_, 183

_From the German of Uhland_, 17

_Fulfillment_, 219

Full moon rising on the waters of my heart, 94

Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving-Tank, 53

_Georgia Dusk_, 95

_Gethsemane_, 169

Give over to high things the fervent thought, 182

_Glory of the Day Was in Her Face, The_, 18

_God Give to Men_, 172

God give the yellow man, 172

_Golgotha Is a Mountain_, 173

Go through the gates with closed eyes, 171

_Grass Fingers_, 38

_Greenness_, 36

GRIMKÉ, ANGELINA WELD, 35

Hair--silver-gray, like streams of stars, 98

_Hatred_, 160

Have you ever seen the moon, 228

_Have You Seen It_, 228

HAYES, DONALD JEFFREY, 188

HAYFORD, GLADYS MAY CASELY, 196

_Heart of a Woman, The_, 81

He came in silvern armour, trimmed with black, 160

Her eyes? Dark pools of deepest shade, 204

Her love is true I know, 213

He scans the world with calm and fearless eyes, 34

He wrote upon his heart, 188

His friends went off and left Him dead, 193

_Homesick Blues_, 147

_Homing_, 172

_Hope_, 75

HORNE, FRANK, 111

_House in Taos, A_, 152

How did it happen that we quarreled? 65

HUGHES, LANGSTON, 144

_Hushed by the Hands of Sleep_, 36

I am so tired and weary, 101

I ask you this, 146

I buried you deeper last night, 113

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats, 184

I do not ask for love, ah! no, 77

I doubt not God is good, 182

I had no thought of violets of late, 72

_I Have a Friend_, 47

_I Have a Rendezvous with Life_, 180

I have gone back in boyish wonderment, 139

I have seen a lovely thing, 170

I have sown beside all waters in my day, 165

I have the greatest fun at night, 58

I kissed a kiss in youth, 31

I know not why or whence he came, 102

I know what the caged bird feels, alas! 8

I laks yo’ kin’ of lovin’, 134

I long not now, 181

I love you for your brownness, 157

I love your hands, 44

I return the bitterness, 124

I said, in drunken pride of youth and you, 138

I sailed in my dreams to the Land of Night, 158

I see in your eyes, 178

I shall come this way again, 189

I shall hate you, 160

I shall make a song like your hair, 155

I should like to creep, 42

_I Sit and Sew_, 73

I that had found the way so smooth, 70

_I Think I See Him There_, 210

I think that man hath, 204

I thought I saw an angel flying low, 166

_I Too_, 145

_I Want to Die While You Love Me_, 78

_I Weep_, 45

I went to court last night, 63

If I have run my course and seek the pearls, 64

If my garden oak spares one bare ledge, 51

I’m folding up my little dreams, 79

_Incident_, 187

_Innocence_, 51

_Inscription_, 188

_Interim_, 142

In wintertime I have such fun, 59

Is Life itself but many ways of thought, 48

It crawled away ’neath my feet, 109

It is fitting that you be here, 112

It was running down to the great Atlantic, 228

I’ve known rivers, 149

_Japanese Hokku_, 127

Jericho is on the inside, 106

JOHNSON, FENTON, 61

JOHNSON, GEORGIA DOUGLAS, 74

JOHNSON, HELENE, 215

JOHNSON, JAMES WELDON, 15

_Joy_, 140

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail, 140

_Jungle Taste_, 214

Lady, my lady, come from out the garden, 136

_Lancelot_, 169

_Last Quarter Moon of the Dying Year, The_, 195

_La Vie C’est La Vie_, 69

Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass, 4

Lemme be wid Casey Jones, 130

_Length of Moon_, 168

_Lethe_, 77

Let me learn now where Beauty is, 48

_Letters Found Near a Suicide_, 114

_Life_, 5

_Life-Long, Poor Browning_, 49

_Lines to a Nasturtium_, 52

_Lines Written at the Grave of Alexander Dumas_, 159

_Litany of Atlanta, A_, 26

Little black boy, 120

Little brown boy, 218

_Little Dandelion, The_, 229

Little Robin red breast, 228

_Little Son_, 76

“Lo, I am black but I am comely too,” 124

Lolotte, who attires my hair, 67

_Long Gone_, 134

Long have I beat with timid hands, 76

_Magalu_, 223

_Marathon Runner, The_, 64

_Mask, The_, 143

MATHEUS, JOHN FREDERICK, 60

_Maumee Ruth_, 133

MCCALL, JAMES EDWARD, 33

MCKAY, CLAUDE, 81

_Me Alone_, 227

Men never know, 212

Might as well bury her, 133

_Mona Lisa, A_, 42

_Morning Light_, 55

_Mother to Son_, 151

_My City_, 25

My heart that was so passionless, 70

_My House_, 92

_My Little Dreams_, 79

My little stone, 114

My spirit is a pestilential city, 88

My window opens out into the trees, 141

_Nativity_, 197

_Negro Speaks of Rivers, The_, 149

_Negro Woman_, 122

_Neighbors_, 47

NELSON, ALICE DUNBAR, 71

_New Negro, The_, 34

NEWSOME, MARY EFFIE LEE, 55

_Nigger_, 120

_Night_, 189

Night like purple flakes of snow, 189

_Noblesse Oblige_, 67

_Nocturne_, 190

_Nocturne at Bethesda_, 166

_No Images_, 212

_Northboun’_, 201

Not as the white nations, 177

Not to dance with her, 209

_November Cotton Flower_, 99

O apple blossoms, 127

O brothers mine, take care! Take care!, 22

_October XXIX, 1795_, 32

O’ de wurl’ ain’t flat, 201

_Odyssey of Big Boy_, 130

Oh, the blue, blue bloom, 56

_Old Black Men_, 77

Once more, listening to the wind and rain, 163

Once riding in old Baltimore, 187

_On Seeing Two Brown Boys in a Catholic Church_, 112

On such a day as this I think, 102

On summer afternoons I sit, 69

On the dusty earth-drum, 100

O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar, 26

Out in the sky the great clouds are massing, 7

Out of the tense awed darkness, 198

O you would clothe me in silken frocks, 87

_Paean_, 195

_Pansy_, 56

_Paradox_, 48

_Poem_, 107

_Poem_, 150

_Poem_, 218

_Portrait_, 204

Pour O pour that parting soul in song, 96

_Prayer_, 146

_Protest_, 181

_Proving_, 77

_Puck Goes to Court_, 63

_Puppet Player, The_, 46

_Quatrains_, 155

_Questing_, 48

_Quilt, The_, 58

_Quoits_, 59

_Radical, The_, 212

_Rain Music_, 100

_Rainy Season Love Song_, 198

_Reapers_, 94

_Recessional_, 79

_Rencontre_, 70

_Requiem_, 61

_Resurrection, The_, 193

_Return_, 139

_Return, The_, 70

_Return, The_, 163

_Revelation_, 107

RICE, ALBERT, 176

_Road, The_, 221

_Robin Red Breast_, 228

_Russian Cathedral_, 87

_Rye Bread_, 31

_Salutamus_, 138

_Sassafras Tea_, 56

_Scintilla_, 31

_Secret_, 155

_Service_, 75

_Serving Girl, The_, 200

_Shadow_, 206

She does not know, 212

She kneeled before me begging, 190

She tripped and fell against a star, 51

She walked along the crowded street, 107

She wears, my beloved, a rose upon her head, 61

_Ships That Pass in the Night_, 7

Silhouette on the face of the moon, 206

SILVERA, EDWARD S., 213

_Sky Pictures_, 57

Slay fowl and beast; pluck clean the vine, 207

_Snow in October_, 71

So detached and cool she is, 143

Softly blow lightly, 190

_Solace_, 141

Some things are very dear to me, 161

Sometimes a right white mountain, 57

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet player, 46

So much have I forgotten in ten years, 85

_Song for a Dark Girl_, 147

_Song of the Son_, 96

_Sonnet_, 72

_Sonnet_, 160

_Sonnet_, 161

_Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem_, 217

_South Street_, 214

So we, who’ve supped the self-same cup, 5

SPENCER, ANNE, 47

_Stream, The_, 228

_Substitution_, 48

_Suicide’s Note_, 151

Summer comes, 223

_Summer Matures_, 217

_Suppliant, The_, 76

_Supplication_, 101

_Surrender_, 38

Sweet timber land, 172

_Sympathy_, 8

_Tanka_, 125

Tell me is there anything lovelier, 36

_Tenebris_, 40

_That Hill_, 109

The baker’s boy delivers loaves, 58

The band of Gideon roam the sky, 103

The bitterness of days like these we know, 138

The breath of life imbued those few dim days, 70

The calabash wherein she served my food, 200

The calm, 151

The dandelion stares, 229

The day is a Negro, 129

The fruit of the orchard is over-ripe, Elaine, 169

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn, 81

The hills are wroth; the stones have scored, 165

The night is beautiful, 150

The night was made for rest and sleep, 142

Then the golden hour, 168

There is a coarseness, 214

There is a tree, by day, 40

There was a man, 11

The sass’fras tea is red and clear, 56

The sky hangs heavy tonight, 122

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue, 95

The sky was blue, so blue that day, 45

The very acme of my woe, 76

They have dreamed as young men dream, 77

This is the debt I pay, 9

This lovely flower fell to seed, 186

Thou art not dead, although the spoiler’s hand, 123

Three students once tarried over the Rhine, 17

Through the pregnant universe, 84

Thunder of the Rain God, 152

Time sitting on the throne of Memory, 32

’Tis queer, it is, the ways to men, 39

_To a Certain Lady, in Her Garden_, 136

_To a Certain Woman_, 178

_To a Dark Girl_, 157

_To an Icicle_, 110

_To a Persistent Phantom_, 113

_To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country_, 165

To climb a hill that hungers for the sky, 219

Today I saw a thing of arresting poignant beauty, 71

To fling my arms wide, 149

_To John Keats, Poet, at Springtime_, 184

_To Lovers of Earth: Fair Warning_, 182

“To meet and then to part,” 225

_To Melody_, 204

TOOMER, JEAN, 93

_Touché_, 66

Touch me, touch me, 38

_Tragedy of Pete, The_, 11

_Transformation_, 124

_Tree Design, A_, 170

_Triviality, A_, 209

_True Love_, 213

Twin stars through my purpling pane, 46

Upstairs on the third floor, 221

_Walls of Jericho, The_, 106

Way down South in Dixie, 147

_Way-side Well, The_, 15

_Ways o’ Men, The_, 39

We are not come to wage a strife, 171

We ask for peace. We, at the bound, 38

WEEDEN, LULA LOWE, 225

Well, son, I’ll tell you, 151

Were you a leper bathed in wounds, 77

We shall not always plant while others reap, 183

_We Wear the Mask_, 8

_What Do I Care for Morning_, 216

_What Need Have I for Memory?_, 80

What! Roses growing in the meadow, 59

When face to face we stand, 43

When first you sang a song to me, 157

_When I am Dead_, 80

When I come down to sleep death’s endless night, 25

_When I Die_, 62

_When the Green Lies Over the Earth_, 41

When we count out our gold at the end of the day, 75

_White Witch, The_, 22

_Wild Goat, The_, 87

_Wild Roses_, 59

WILLIAMS, LUCY ARIEL, 201

_Winter Twilight, A_, 46

Within a native hut, 197

_Words! Words!_, 65

_Yet Do I Marvel_, 182

You are disdainful and magnificent, 217

_Your Hands_, 44

_Your Songs_, 157

Your words dropped into my heart, 91

You were a sophist, 156

* * * * *

Transcriber’s note

Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.

Page number references in the index are as published in the original publication and have not been checked for accuracy in this eBook.

Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following changes:

Page vi: “_No’thboun’_ by Lucy Ariel” “_Northboun’_ by Lucy Ariel” Page 47: “its so involved and” “it’s so involved and” Page 66: “TOUCHE” “TOUCHÉ” Page 206: “an all-womens’ hotel” “an all-women’s hotel” Page 230: “Ah, little road” “Ah, little road all”