The sky hangs heavy tonight
Like the hair of a Negro woman.
The scars of the moon are curved
Like the wrinkles on the brow of a Negro woman.
The stars twinkle tonight
Like the glaze in a Negro woman’s eyes,
Drinking the tears set flowing by an aging hurt
Gnawing at her heart.
The earth trembles tonight
Like the quiver of a Negro woman’s eye-lids cupping tears.
Are there no tears for other hearts to shed?
Those heavy eyes have drained the world of grief,
And yet no solace found, no drear relief.
Such as my heart would seek, and find, I know,
Had I been given the weight of that vast woe,
And wept through pain to peace! But you, instead,
Have drowned all healing in a shoreless sea
Of unforgiven wrong, whose every breath
Lifts windy clamor through the soul's hushed space.
Fanning to greater grief, to swifter glow.
The flame that smolders still in that bronze face,
Sadder than life, and sadder far than death,
Because of love renounced and joy to be.
And faith and hope and immortality.
Suddenly flickered a flame,
Suddenly fluttered a wing:
What, can a dead bird sing?
Somebody spoke your name.
Suddenly fluttered a wing,
Sounded a voice, the same,
Somebody spoke your name:
Oh, the remembering!
Sounded a voice, the same,
Song of the heart's wild Spring,
Oh, the remembering:
Which of us was to blame?
Song of the heart's wild Spring,
Wings that still flutter, lame,
Which of us was to blame? —
God, the slow withering!
My soul was silent with delight
Too long!
And then, after we parted,
Love found me in the night,
Wandering bitter-hearted,
And touched my lips with song;
That I, silent no more, might sound your praise,
And all the sweetness of your ways,
Find melodies for my great wrong —
And so live tunefully the tuneless days.
Night, leaning there upon the hills.
What robber cloud has dared?
The great white pearl you wore,
Hung from your glittering chain of stars,
Is gone:
And in its place a red wound drips
Its anguished light.
You lie there.
Too still beneath the waters,
More than a reflection,
Less than a tree:
Your limbs gleam upward,
Your dank leaves are like the hair of a drowned woman.
No longer do you know the touch of spring,
Nor will the birds build their round nurseries
Between your white fingers.
The wood has forgotten you,
The breezes have forgotten.
But the moon mourns.
Slipping a silver shroud about you
Pitifully,
As you lie, still beautiful.
In your unhallowed grave.
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
Beat the drums of tragedy for me.
Beat the drums of tragedy and death.
And let the choir sing a stormy song
To drown the rattle of my dying breath.
Beat the drums of tragedy for me,
And let the white violins whir thin and slow,
But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun
To go with me
to the darkness
where I go.
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
There was a man lived quite near us;
He had a wooden leg and a goldfinch in a green cage.
His name was Farkey Anderson,
And he’d been in a war to get his leg.
We were very sad about him,
Because he had such a beautiful smile
And was such a big man to live in a very small house.
When he walked on the road his leg did not matter so much;
But when he walked in his little house
It made an ugly noise.
Little Brother said his goldfinch sang the loudest of all birds,
So that he should not hear his poor leg
And feel too sorry about it.
Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
Will the Summer come again?
Rain on houses, on the street,
Wetting all the people’s feet.
Though they run with might and main.
Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.
Will the Winter never go?
What do beggar children do
With no fire to cuddle to,
P’raps with nowhere warm to go?
Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.
Hail and ice, and ice and hail,
Water frozen in the pail.
See the robins, brown and red,
They are waiting to be fed.
(O little white feet of mine)
Out in the storm and the rain you fly;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Can the children hear my cry?
(O little white feet of mine)
Never a child in the whole great town;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Lights out and the blinds pulled down.
(O little white feet of mine)
Never a light on a window pane,
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And the wild wet cry of the rain.
(O little white feet of mine)
Shall I never again be still?
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And away over valley and hill.