The Book of American Negro Poetry Part 10

IV

_The Way_

He could not tell the way he came, Because his chart was lost: Yet all his way was paved with flame From the bourne he crossed.

He did not know the way to go, Because he had no map: He followed where the winds blow,-- And the April sap.

He never knew upon his brow The secret that he bore,-- And laughs away the mystery now The dark's at his door.

V

_Onus Probandi_

No more from out the sunset, No more across the foam, No more across the windy hills Will Sandy Star come home.

He went away to search it With a curse upon his tongue: And in his hand the staff of life, Made music as it swung.

I wonder if he found it, And knows the mystery now-- Our Sandy Star who went away, With the secret on his brow.

DEL CASCAR

Del Cascar, Del Cascar, Stood upon a flaming star, Stood, and let his feet hang down Till in China the toes turned brown.

And he reached his fingers over The rim of the sea, like sails from Dover, And caught a Mandarin at prayer, And tickled his nose in Orion's hair.

The sun went down through crimson bars, And left his blind face battered with stars-- But the brown toes in China kept Hot the tears Del Cascar wept.

TURN ME TO MY YELLOW LEAVES

Turn me to my yellow leaves, I am better satisfied; There is something in me grieves-- That was never born, and died.

Let me be a scarlet flame On a windy autumn morn, I who never had a name, Nor from breathing image born.

From the margin let me fall Where the farthest stars sink down, And the void consumes me,--all In nothingness to drown.

Let me dream my dream entire, Withered as an autumn leaf-- Let me have my vain desire, Vain--as it is brief.

IRONIC: LL.D.

There are no hollows any more Between the mountains; the prairie floor Is like a curtain with the drape Of the winds' invisible shape; And nowhere seen and nowhere heard The sea's quiet as a sleeping bird.

Now we're traveling, what holds back Arrival, in the very track Where the urge put forth; so we stay And move a thousand miles a day.

Time's a Fancy ringing bells Whose meaning, charlatan history, tells!

SCINTILLA

I kissed a kiss in youth Upon a dead man's brow; And that was long ago,-- And I'm a grown man now.

It's lain there in the dust, Thirty years and more;-- My lips that set a light At a dead man's door.

SIC VITA

Heart free, hand free, Blue above, brown under, All the world to me Is a place of wonder.

Sun s.h.i.+ne, moon s.h.i.+ne, Stars, and winds a-blowing, All into this heart of mine Flowing, flowing, flowing!

Mind free, step free, Days to follow after, Joys of life sold to me For the price of laughter.

Girl's love, man's love, Love of work and duty, Just a will of G.o.d's to prove Beauty, beauty, beauty!

RHAPSODY

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.

George Reginald Margetson

STANZAS FROM THE FLEDGLING BARD AND THE POETRY SOCIETY

_Part I_

I'm out to find the new, the modern school, Where Science trains the fledgling bard to fly, Where critics teach the ignorant, the fool, To write the stuff the editors would buy; It matters not e'en tho it be a lie,-- Just so it aims to smash tradition's crown And build up one instead decked with a new renown.

A thought is haunting me by night and day, And in some safe archive I seek to lay it; I have some startling thing I wish to say, And they can put me wise just how to say it.

Without their aid, I, like the a.s.s, must bray it, Without due knowledge of its mood and tense, And so 'tis sure to fail the bard to recompense.

Will some kind one direct me to that college Where every budding genius now is headed, The only source to gain poetic knowledge, Where all the sacred truths lay deep imbedded, Where nothing but the genuine goods are shredded,-- The factory where they shape new feet and meters That make poetic symbols sound like carpet beaters.

I hope I'll be an eligible student, E'en tho I am no poet in a sense, But just a hot-head youth with ways imprudent,-- A rustic ranting rhymer like by chance Who thinks that he can make the muses dance By beating on some poet's borrowed lyre, To win some fool's applause and please his own desire.

Perhaps they'll never know or e'en suspect That I am not a true, a genuine poet; If in the poet's colors I am decked They may not ask me e'er to prove or show it.

I'll play the wise old c.o.c.k, nor try to crow it, But be content to gaze with open mind; I'll never show the lead but eye things from behind.

_Part II_

I have a problem all alone to solve, A problem how to find the poetry club, It makes my sky piece like a top revolve, For fear that they might mark me for a sn.o.b.

They'll call me poetry monger and then dub Me rustic rhymer, anything they choose, Ay, anything at all, but heaven's immortal muse.

Great Byron, when he published his Childe book, In which he sang of all his lovely dears, Called forth hot condemnation and cold look, From lesser mortals who were not his peers.