Say I betray a sacred trust
Aching beyond this vault.
I’ll bear your censure as your praise,
For never shall the clan
Confine my singing to its ways
Beyond the ways of man.
No racial option narrows grief,
Pain is not patriot,
And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf
For all as lief as not.
With blind sheep groping every hill,
Searching an oriflamme,
How shall the shpherd heart then thrill
To only the darker lamb?
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Locked arm in arm they cross the way
The golden splendor of the dayThe sable pride of night.From lowered blinds the dark folk stareAnd here the fair folk talk,Indignant that these two should dareIn unison to walk.Oblivious to look and wordThey pass, and see no wonderThat lightning brilliant as a swordShould blaze the path of thunder.
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
The little buried mole continues blind,Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,Make plain the reason tortured TantalusIs baited by the fickle fruit, declareIf merely brute caprice dooms SisyphusTo struggle up a never-ending stair.Inscrutable His ways are, and immuneTo catechism by a mind too strewnWith petty cares to slightly understandWhat awful brain compels His…
This is not water running here,
That hurtle flesh and bone past fearDown alleyways of dreamsThis is a wine that must flow onNot caring how or whereSo it has ways to flow uponWhere song is in the air.So it can woo an artful fluteWith loose elastic lipsIts measurements of joy computeWith blithe, ecstatic hips.
Along the shore the tall thin grass,
While sinuously soft feet passBeings to bleed and quiver.The great dark voice breaks with a sobAcross the womb of night;Above your grave, the tom-toms throbAnd the hills are weird with light.The great dark beast is like a wellDrained bitter by the sky,And all the honeyed lies they tellCome there to thirst and die.No lie is…
We shall not always plant while others reap
Not always countenance, abject and mute,That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;Not everlastingly while others sleepShall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,Not always bend to some more subtle brute;We were not made to eternally weep.The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,White stars is no less lovely being dark,And there are buds that…
That brown girl’s swagger gives a twitch
Lad, never damn your body’s itchWhen loveliness is seen.For there is ample room for blissIn pride in clean brown limbs,And lips know better how to kissThan how to raise white hymns.And when your body’s death gives birthTo soil for spring to crown,Men will not ask if that rare earthWas white flesh once, or brown.