GoodPoetry

“The Poet and His Song”

a young man posing in a photograph dressed in a suit — Paul Laurence Dunbar

by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 – 1906)

A song is but a little thing,
And yet what joy it is to sing!
In hours of toil it gives me zest,
And when at eve I long for rest;
When cows come home along the bars,
And in the fold I hear the bell,
As Night, the shepherd, herds his stars,
I sing my song, and all is well.

There are no ears to hear my lays,
No lips to lift a word of praise;
But still, with faith unfaltering,
I live and laugh and love and sing.
What matters yon unheeding throng?
They cannot feel my spirit’s spell,
Since life is sweet and love is long,
I sing my song, and all is well.

My days are never days of ease;
I till my ground and prune my trees.
When ripened gold is all the plain,
I put my sickle to the grain.
I labor hard, and toil and sweat,
While others dream within the dell;
But even while my brow is wet,
I sing my song, and all is well.

Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot,
My garden makes a desert spot;
Sometimes a blight upon the tree
Takes all my fruit away from me;
And then with throes of bitter pain
Rebellious passions rise and swell;
But—life is more than fruit or grain,
And so I sing, and all is well.

Tags American Literature, American poetry, art, Arts, Black History, black history month, black literature, Black Poetry, black writer, Literature, poem, poet, Poetry

18th Century African-American Literature Phillis Wheatley Phyllis Wheatley poet Poetry Uncategorized United States women women poets

“To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth”

Post author By TDarris
Post date February 14, 2022
No Comments on “To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth”

by Phillis Wheatley

HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:
Soon as appear’d the Goddess long desir’d,
Sick at the view, she languish’d and expir’d;
Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’ enslave the land.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,
Since in thy pow’r, as in thy will before,
To sooth the griefs, which thou did’st once deplore.
May heav’nly grace the sacred sanction give
To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot’s name,
But to conduct to heav’ns refulgent fane,
May fiery coursers sweep th’ ethereal plain,
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.

This poem is in the public domain.

Tags America, Arts, Literature, phillis wheatley, poem, poems, poet, Poetry, women poets

African-American America American American Poetry Black History General Harlem Renaissance Jean Toomer Poetry United States

“Beehive”

by Jean Toomer

Within this black hive to-night
There swarm a million bees;
Bees passing in and out the moon,
Bees escaping out the moon,
Bees returning through the moon,
Silver bees intently buzzing,
Silver honey dripping from the swarm of bees
Earth is a waxen cell of the world comb,
And I, a drone,
Lying on my back,
Lipping honey,
Getting drunk with that silver honey,
Wish that I might fly out past the moon
And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower.

Tags African-American Poetry, America, American poetry, art, Arts, black culture, Black History, Harlem Renaissance, Literature, poem, poems, poet, Poetry

20th century Black History Claude McKay modern poetry Poetry United States

“If We Must Die”

by Claude McCkay

If we must die — let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die — oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but — fighting back!

Tags #blackhistory, #blackhistorymonth, #poetryisnotdead, America, American poetry, art, Arts, Black History, Black Poetry, Claude McKay, Literature, poem, poems, Poetry

20th century African-American America American American Poetry Black History Melvin B. Tolson poet Poetry United States

A Song for Myself

by Melvin B. Tolson

Melvin Beaunorus Tolson February 6, 1898 – August 29, 1966 // Public Domain

I judge

My soul

Eagle

Nor mole:

A man

Is what

He saves

From rot.

The corn

Will fat

A hog

Or rat:

Are these

Dry bones

A hut’s

Or throne’s?

Who filled

The moat

’Twixt sheep

And goat?

Let Death,

The twin

of Life,

Slip in?

Prophets

Arise,

Mask-hid,

Unwise,

Divide

The earth

By class

and birth.

Caesars

Without,

The People

Shall rout;

Caesars

Within,

Crush flat

As tin.

Who makes

A noose

Envies

The goose.

Who digs

A pit

Dices

For it.

Shall tears

Be shed

For those

Whose bread

Is thieved

Headlong?

Tears right

No wrong.

Prophets

Shall teach

The meek

To reach.

Leave not

To God

The boot

And rod.

The straight

Lines curve?

Failure

Of nerve?

Blind-spots

Assail?

Times have

Their Braille.

If hue

Of skin

Trademark

A sin,

Blame not

The make

For God’s

Mistake.

Since flesh

And bone

Turn dust

And stone,

With life

So brief,

Why add

To grief?

I sift

The chaff

From wheat

and laugh.

No curse

Can stop

The tick

Of clock.

Those who

Wall in

Themselves

And grin

Commit

Incest

And spawn

A pest.

What’s writ

In vice

Is writ

In ice.

The truth

Is not

Of fruits

That rot.

A sponge,

The mind

Soaks in

The kind

Of stuff

That fate’s

Milieu

Dictates.

Jesus,

Mozart,

Shakespeare,

Descartes,

Lenin,

Chladni,

Have lodged

With me.

I snatch

From hooks

The meat

Of books.

I seek

Frontiers,

Not worlds

On biers.

The snake

Entoils

The pig

With coils.

The pig’s

Skewed wail

Does not

Prevail.

Old men

Grow worse

With prayer

Or curse:

Their staffs

Thwack youth

Starved thin

For truth.

Today

The Few

Yield poets

Their due;

Tomorrow

The Mass

Judgment

Shall pass.

I harbor

One fear

If death

Crouch near:

Does my

Creed span

The Gulf

Of Man?

And when

I go

In calm

Or blow

From mice

And men,

Selah!

What . . . then?

Melvin Tolson, “A Song for Myself” from Harlem Gallery and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1999)

Source: “Harlem Gallery” and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson (University Press of Virginia, 1999)

Tags America, American poetry, art, Arts, Literature, poem, poet, Poetry

18th Century African-American American American Poetry Black History Poetry Uncategorized

From “An Anniversary Poem, Entitled, ‘The Progress of Liberty” by James Madison Bell (1826 – 1902)

Post author By TDarris
Post date February 3, 2022
No Comments on From “An Anniversary Poem, Entitled, ‘The Progress of Liberty” by James Madison Bell (1826 – 1902)

BY James Madison Bell

Bondsman’s gloomy night has passed; The
The slavery of this land is dead;
No tyrant’s power, however vast,
Can wake it from its gory bed.
For in the order of events,
And after an ignoble reign,
It died. None mourned its going hence,
Nor followed in its funeral train;
Ignoble birth, ignoble life,
Ignoble death, ignoble doom!
Conceived by fiends in deadly strife,
And cast into a nameless tomb.

Though slavery’s dead, yet there remains
A work for those from whom the chains
Today are falling one by one;
Nor should they deem their labor done,
Nor shrink the task, however hard,
While it insures a great reward,
And bids them on its might depend
For perfect freedom in the end.

Commend yourselves through self-respect;
Let self-respect become your guide:
Then will consistency reflect
Your rightful claims to manhood’s pride.
But while you cringe and basely cower,
And while you ostracise your class,
Heaven will ne’er assume the power
To elevate you as a mass.

In this yourselves must take the lead;
You must yourselves first elevate;
Till then the world will ne’er concede
Your claims to manhood’s high estate.
Respect yourself ; this forms the base
Of manhood’s claim to man’s regard.
Next to yourself, respect your race,
Whose care should be your constant ward;
Remember that you are a class
Distinct and separate in this land,
And all the wealth you may amass,
Or skill, or learning, won’t command
That high respect you vainly seek,
Until you practice what you claim —
Until the acts and words you speak
Shall, in the concrete, be the same.

Screen not behind a pallid brow;
Paint lends no virtue to the face;
Until the Black’s respected, thou,
With all the branches of his race,
Must bow beneath the cruel ban
And often feel the wrinkled brow
Bent on you by a fellow-man
Not half so worthy, oft, as thou.

Away with caste, and let us fight
As men, the battles of the free,
And Heaven will arm you with the might
And power of man’s divinity.
There may be causes for distrust,
And many an act that seems unjust;
But who, when taking all in all,
And summing up our present state,
Would find no objects to extol,
No worthy deeds to emulate?

Tags anniversary, Black History, James Madison Bell, poem, poet, Poetry

American American Poetry Black History General History Phillis Wheatley poet Poetry Religion and Spirituality Uncategorized United States women women poets

On Being Brought from Africa to America

Post author By TDarris
Post date February 2, 2022
No Comments on On Being Brought from Africa to America

by Phillis Wheatley

Listen to “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
“Their colour is a diabolic die.”
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

This poem is in the public domain.

Reprinted in “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African”

America American Black History Celebration Faith James Weldon Johnson poet Poetry Religion and Spirituality Uncategorized United States

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

Post author By TDarris
Post date January 31, 2022
No Comments on “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

by James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson circa
(1900 – 1920) / SOURCE: U.S. Library of Congress

“Lift Every Voice” / Original Version

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

“Lift Every Voice” by James Weldon Johnson, sung by Committed

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

Alicia Keys – Lift Every Voice and Sing Performance

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.

This poem is in the public domain.

Tags african american history, african american literature, African American poet, America, American Literature, American poetry, art, Arts, Black History, black history month, Black Poetry, faith, Literature, poem, poems, poet, Poetry

19th century 20th century American Poetry Black History Celebration modern poetry United States William Braithwaite

“Rhapsody”

by William Braithwaite

I am glad daylong for the gift of song,
For time and change and sorrow;
For the sunset wings and the world-end things
Which hang on the edge of to-morrow.
I am glad for my heart whose gates apart
Are the entrance-place of wonders,
Where dreams come in from the rush and din
Like sheep from the rains and thunders.

Tags America, American poetry, Arts, Literature, poem, poems, poet, Poetry, William Braithwaite

American American Poetry Martin Luther King, Jr. poet Poetry United States

The Streetsweeper

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Original Caption) 4/3/1968-Memphis, TN: One of the last pictures to be taken of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — speaking to a mass rally April 3 in Memphis — when he said he would not halt his plans for a massive demonstration scheduled for April 8 in spite of a federal injunction. The Nobel Peace Prize Winner was felled by a sniper’s bullet, April 4.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper,
sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures,
sweep streets like Beethoven composed music,
sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera.

Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.
Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say:
Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.

If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill,
be a shrub in the valley.
Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can’t be a sun, be a star.
For it isn’t by size that you win or fail.
Be the best of whatever you are.

Tags America, american history, American poetry, art, Arts, Black History, black history month, civil rights, History, Literature, Martin Luther King, poem, poet, Poetry

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