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.
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.
The Lament of a Vanquished Beau
Willy is a silly boy,
Willy is a cad.
Willy is a foolish kid,
Sense he never had.
Yet all the girls like Willy—
Why I cannot see—
He even took my best girl
Right away from me.
I asked him did he want to fight,
But all he did was grin
And answer, “Don’t be guilty
Of such a brutal sin.”
Oh, Willy’s sure a silly boy,
He really is a cad,
Because he took the only girl
That I ’most ever had.
Her hair’s so long and pretty
And her eyes are very gay;
I guess that she likes Willy
’Cause he’s handsome, too, they say.
But for me, he’s not good looking;
And he sure has made me mad,
’Cause he went and took the only girl
That I ’most ever had.
Mister Sandman
The Sandman walks abroad tonight,
With his canvas sack o’ dreams filled tight.
Over the roofs of the little town,
The golden face of the moon looks down.
Each Mary and Willy and Cora and Ned
Is sound asleep in some cozy bed,
When the Sandman opens his magic sack
To select the dreams from his wonder pack.
“Ah,” says the Sandman, “To this little girl
I’ll send a dream like a precious pearl.”
So to Mary Jane, who’s been good all day,
A fairy comes in her sleep to play;
But for Corinne Ann, who teased the cat,
There’s a horrid dream of a horrid rat,
And the greedy boy, with his stomach too full,
Has a bad, bad dream of a raging bull;
While for tiny babes, a few days old,
Come misty dreams, all rose and gold.
And for every girl and every boy
The Sandman has dreams that can please or annoy.
When at pink-white dawn, with his night’s work done,
He takes the road toward the rising sun,
He goes straight on without a pause
To his house in the land of Santa Claus.
But at purple night-fall he’s back again
To distribute his dreams, be it moon light or rain;
And good little children get lovely sleep toys;
But woe to the bad little girls and boys!
For those who’d have dreams that are charming and sweet,
Must be good in the day and not stuff when they eat,
’Cause old Mister Sandman, abroad each night,
Has a dream in his sack to fit each child just right.
Autumn Thought
Flowers are happy in summer;
In autumn they die and are blown away.
Dry and withered,
Their petals dance on the wind,
Like little brown butterflies.
Thanksgiving Time
When the night winds whistle through the trees and blow the crisp brown leaves a-crackling down,
When the autumn moon is big and yellow-orange and round,
When old Jack Frost is sparkling on the ground,
It’s Thanksgiving time!
When the pantry jars are full of mince-meat and the shelves are laden with sweet spices for a cake,
When the butcher man sends up a turkey nice and fat to bake,
When the stores are crammed with everything ingenious cooks can make,
It’s Thanksgiving time!
When the gales of coming winter outside your window howl,
When the air is sharp and cheery so it drives away your scowl,
When one’s appetite craves turkey and will have no other fowl,
It’s Thanksgiving time!
The Negro
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.
Question
When the old junk man Death
Comes to gather up our bodies
And toss them into the sack of oblivion,
I wonder if he will find
The corpse of a white multi-millionaire
Worth more pennies of eternity,
Than the black torso of
A Negro cotton-picker?
Mexican Market Woman
This ancient hag
Who sits upon the ground
Selling her scanty wares
Day in, day round,
Has known high wind-swept mountains,
And the sun has made
Her skin so brown.
The New Moon
There’s a new, young moon riding the hills tonight;
There’s a sprightly, young moon exploring the clouds;
There’s a half-shy, young moon veiling her face like a virgin,
Waiting for her lover.
To a Dead Friend
The moon still sends its mellow light
Through the purple blackness of the night;
The morning star is palely bright
Before the dawn.
The sun still shines just as before;
The rose still grows beside my door,
But you have gone.
The sky is blue and the robin sings;
The butterflies dance on rainbow wings
Though I am sad.
In all the earth no
