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Ebook has 222 lines and 16845 words, and 5 pages

COLOR

COLOR

To my Mother and Father

This First Book

For permission to reprint certain of these poems thanks is hereby given to the following publications:

COLOR

YET DO I MARVEL 3 A SONG OF PRAISE 4 BROWN BOY TO BROWN GIRL 5 A BROWN GIRL DEAD 6 TO A BROWN GIRL 7 TO A BROWN BOY 8 BLACK MAGDALENS 9 ATLANTIC CITY WAITER 10 NEAR WHITE 11 TABLEAU 12 HARLEM WINE 13 SIMON THE CYRENIAN SPEAKS 14 INCIDENT 15 TWO WHO CROSSED A LINE 16 TWO WHO CROSSED A LINE 17 SATURDAY'S CHILD 18 THE DANCE OF LOVE 19 PAGAN PRAYER 20 WISDOM COMETH WITH THE YEARS 22 TO MY FAIRER BRETHREN 23 FRUIT OF THE FLOWER 24 THE SHROUD OF COLOR 26 HERITAGE 36

EPITAPHS

FOR A POET 45 FOR MY GRANDMOTHER 46 FOR A CYNIC 47 FOR A SINGER 48 FOR A VIRGIN 49 FOR A LADY I KNOW 50 FOR A LOVELY LADY 51 FOR AN ATHEIST 52 FOR AN EVOLUTIONIST AND HIS OPPONENT 53 FOR AN ANARCHIST 54 FOR A MAGICIAN 55 FOR A PESSIMIST 56 FOR A MOUTHY WOMAN 57 FOR A PHILOSOPHER 58 FOR AN UNSUCCESSFUL SINNER 59 FOR A FOOL 60 FOR ONE WHO GAYLY SOWED HIS OATS 61 FOR A SKEPTIC 62 FOR A FATALIST 63 FOR DAUGHTERS OF MAGDALEN 64 FOR A WANTON 65 FOR A PREACHER 66 FOR ONE WHO DIED SINGING OF DEATH 67 FOR JOHN KEATS, APOSTLE OF BEAUTY 68 FOR HAZEL HALL, AMERICAN POET 69 FOR PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR 70 FOR JOSEPH CONRAD 71 FOR MYSELF 72 ALL THE DEAD 73

FOR LOVE'S SAKE

OH, FOR A LITTLE WHILE BE KIND 77 IF YOU SHOULD GO 78 TO ONE WHO SAID ME NAY 79 ADVICE TO YOUTH 80 CAPRICE 81 SACRAMENT 82 BREAD AND WINE 83 SPRING REMINISCENCE 84

VARIA

SUICIDE CHANT 87 SHE OF THE DANCING FEET SINGS 89 JUDAS ISCARIOT 90 THE WISE 95 MARY, MOTHER OF CHRIST 96 DIALOGUE 97 IN MEMORY OF COL. CHARLES YOUNG 99 TO MY FRIENDS 100 GODS 101 TO JOHN KEATS, POET. AT SPRINGTIME 102 ON GOING 105 HARSH WORLD THAT LASHEST ME 106 REQUIESCAM 108

Soon every sprinter, However fleet, Comes to a winter Of sure defeat: Though he may race Like the hunted doe, Time has a pace To lay him low.

Soon we who sing, However high, Must face the Thing We cannot fly. Yea, though we fling Our notes to the sun, Time will outsing Us every one.

All things must change As the wind is blown; Time will estrange The flesh from the bone. The dream shall elude The dreamer's clasp, And only its hood Shall comfort his grasp.

A little while, Too brief at most, And even my smile Will be a ghost. A little space, A Finger's crook, And who shall trace The path I took?

Who shall declare My whereabouts; Say if in the air My being shouts Along light ways, Or if in the sea, Or deep earth stays The germ of me?

Ah, none knows, none, Save The Cryptic One Who will not tell.

This is my hour To wax and climb, Flaunt a red flower In the face of time. And only an hour Time gives, then snap Goes the flower, And dried is the sap.

Juice of the first Grapes of my vine, I proffer your thirst My own heart's wine. Here of my growing A red rose sways, Seed of my sowing, And work of my days.

Drink while my blood Colors the wine, Reach while the bud Is still on the vine....

Then ... When the hawks of death Tear at my throat Till song and breath Ebb note by note, Turn to this book Of the mellow word For a singing look At the stricken bird.

When the dreadful Ax Rives me apart, When the sharp wedge cracks My arid heart, Turn to this book Of the singing me For a springtime look At the wintry tree.

Say, "Thus it was weighed With flower and fruit, Ere the Ax was laid Unto its root. Though the blows fall free On a gnarled trunk now, Once he was a tree With a blossomy bough."

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

You have not heard my love's dark throat, Slow-fluting like a reed, Release the perfect golden note She caged there for my need.

Her walk is like the replica Of some barbaric dance Wherein the soul of Africa Is winged with arrogance.

And yet so light she steps across The ways her sure feet pass, She does not dent the smoothest moss Or bend the thinnest grass.

My love is dark as yours is fair, Yet lovelier I hold her Than listless maids with pallid hair, And blood that's thin and colder.

You-proud-and-to-be-pitied one, Gaze on her and despair; Then seal your lips until the sun Discovers one as fair.

"As surely as I hold your hand in mine, As surely as your crinkled hair belies The enamoured sun pretending that he dies While still he loiters in its glossy shine, As surely as I break the slender line That spider linked us with, in no least wise Am I uncertain that these alien skies Do not our whole life measure and confine. No less, once in a land of scarlet suns And brooding winds, before the hurricane Bore down upon us, long before this pain, We found a place where quiet water runs; I held your hand this way upon a hill, And felt my heart forebear, my pulse grow still."

With two white roses on her breasts, White candles at head and feet, Dark Madonna of the grave she rests; Lord Death has found her sweet.

Her mother pawned her wedding ring To lay her out in white; She'd be so proud she'd dance and sing To see herself tonight.

What if his glance is bold and free, His mouth the lash of whips? So should the eyes of lovers be, And so a lover's lips.

What if no puritanic strain Confines him to the nice? He will not pass this way again, Nor hunger for you twice.

Since in the end consort together Magdalen and Mary, Youth is the time for careless weather: Later, lass, be wary.

That brown girl's swagger gives a twitch To beauty like a queen; Lad, never dam your body's itch When loveliness is seen.

For there is ample room for bliss In pride in clean, brown limbs, And lips know better how to kiss Than how to raise white hymns.

And when your body's death gives birth To soil for spring to crown, Men will not ask if that rare earth Was white flesh once, or brown.

These have no Christ to spit and stoop To write upon the sand, Inviting him that has not sinned To raise the first rude hand.

And if he came they could not buy Rich ointment for his feet, The body's sale scarce yields enough To let the body eat.

The chaste clean ladies pass them by And draw their skirts aside, But Magdalens have a ready laugh; They wrap their wounds in pride.

They fare full ill since Christ forsook The cross to mount a throne, And Virtue still is stooping down To cast the first hard stone.

With subtle poise he grips his tray Of delicate things to eat; Choice viands to their mouths half way, The ladies watch his feet

Go carving dexterous avenues Through sly intricacies; Ten thousand years on jungle clues Alone shaped feet like these.

For him to be humble who is proud Needs colder artifice; Though half his pride is disavowed, In vain the sacrifice.

Sheer through his acquiescent mask Of bland gentility, The jungle flames like a copper cask Set where the sun strikes free.

Locked arm in arm they cross the way, The black boy and the white, The golden splendor of the day, The sable pride of night.

From lowered blinds the dark folk stare, And here the fair folk talk, Indignant that these two should dare In unison to walk.

Oblivious to look and word They pass, and see no wonder That lightning brilliant as a sword Should blaze the path of thunder.

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