|
The
Negro Speaks of Rivers I've
known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the
rivers.
I bathed in the 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.
|
Laughers Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate-
My people.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Rounders,
Number writers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses-
Dream-singers all,-
My people.
Story-tellers all,-
My people.
Dancers-
|
|
Dressed Up I had ma clothes
cleaned
Just like new.
I put 'em on but
I still feels blue.
I bought a new hat,
Sho is fine,
But I wish I had back that
Old gal o' mine.
I got new shoes,-
They don't hurt ma feet,
But ain't got nobody
For to call me sweet.
|
Shadows We run,
We run,
We cannot stand these shadows!
Give us the sun.
We were not made
For shade,
For heavy shade,
And narrow space of stifling air
That these white things have made.
We run,
Oh, God,
We run!
We must find the sun.
|
|
Walls Four walls can hold
So much pain,
Fours walls that shield
From the wind and rain.
Four walls can shelter
So much sorrow
Garnered from yesterday
And held for tomorrow.
|
Stars O, sweep of stars over
Harlem streets,
O, little breath of oblivion that is night.
A city building
To a mother's song.
A city dreaming
To a lullaby.
Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.
Out of the little breath of oblivion
That is night,
Take just
One star. |
|
Day
Where most surely comes a day
When all the sweets you've gorged
Will turn your stomach sick
And all the friends you've loved
Will go away
And every gold swift hour
Will be an hour of pain
And every sun-filled cloud
A cloud of rain
And even the withered flowers
Will lose their long-held faint perfume
And you alone will be with you
In that last room,-
Only your single selves together
Facing a single doom.
|
Misery Play the blues for me.
Play the blues for me.
No other music
'Ll ease my misery.
Sing a soothin' song.
Said a soothin' song
Cause the man I love's done
Done me wrong.
Can't you understand,
O, understand
A good woman's cryin'
For a no-good man
Black gal like me,
Black gal like me,
'S got to hear a blues
For her misery. |