Poems
From Harlem Renaissance
Posted by Raffi
If We Must Die
By Claude Mckay'
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, O 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 through dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Through for outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What through before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
W.E.B. Du Bois
The Song Of Smoke
(Only one part of the poem)
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am swinging in the sky.
I am ringing worlds on high:
I am the thought of the throbbing mills,
I am the soul toil kills,
I am the ripple of trading rills,
Up I'm curling from the sod,
I am whirling home to God.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am wreathing broken hearts,
I am sheathing devils' darts;
Dark inspiration of iron times,
Wedding the toil of toiling climes
Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes.
Down I lower in the blue,
Up I tower toward the true,
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
Langston Hughes
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes
Dream Boogie
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?
Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a-
You think
It's a happy beat?
Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
Something underneath
Like a-
What did i say?
Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
Hey,pop! Re-bop Mop!
Y-e-a-h!
Langston Hughes
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged
bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
