Caroling Dusk

Layout 2

Caroling Dusk

An Anthology of Verse
by Negro Poets

Edited by

COUNTEE CULLEN

Decorations by

AARON DOUGLAS

J. & J. Harper Editions

HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS

New York and Evanston

CAROLING DUSK, edited by Countee Cullen.

Copyright 1927 by Harper & Brothers. Copyright renewed 1955 by Ida M. Cullen. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 49 East 33rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10016.

FIRST J. & J. HARPER EDITION 1968

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 27-23175

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For permission to use the poems in this anthology, the editor wishes to thank the poets represented, and the following magazines and publishers:

Dodd, Mead and Co. for poems from The Collected Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar

Boni and Liveright for poems from Cane by Jean Toomer

Alfred A. Knopf for poems from The Weary Blues and Fine Clothes to the Jew by Langston Hughes

The Viking Press for "The Creation" from God's Trombones by James Weldon Johnson

The Cornhill Publishing Co. for poems from The Band of Gideon by Joseph S. Cotter, and from Fifty Years and other Poems by James Weldon Johnson, and from The Heart of a Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Harcourt, Brace & Co. for poems from Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay and for A Litany of Atlanta by W. E. B. DuBois

Harper & Brothers for poems from Color and Copper Sun by Countee Cullen

B. J. Brimmer Co. for poems from Bronze by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life for Desolate and My House by Claude McKay; Old Black Men by Georgia Douglas Johnson; Summer Matures, Fulfillment, The Road by Helene Johnson; Portrait by George Leonard Allen; For the Candlelight by Angelina Weld Grimké; The Return, Golgotha Is a Mountain, The Day Breakers, and God Give to Men by Arna Bontemps; I Have a Rendezvous With Life by Countee Cullen; Lines Written at the Grave of Alexander Dumas and Hatred by Gwendolyn B. Bennett; Joy, Solace, Interim by Clarissa Scott Delany; Confession by Donald Jeffrey Hayes; On Seeing Two Brown Boys In a Catholic Church and To a Persistent Phantom by Frank Horne; Poem by Blanche Taylor Dickinson; The New Negro by James Edward McCall; The Tragedy of Pete and The Wayside Well by Joseph S. Cotter, Sr.; No Images by Waring Cuney; No'thboun' by Lucy Ariel Williams; Shadow by Richard Bruce; The Resurrection by Jonathan H. Brooks; Africa and Transformation by Lewis Alexander

The Conning Tower of the New York World for Noblesse Oblige by Jessie Redmond Fauset

The Crisis for That Hill by Blanche Taylor Dickinson; Nocturne at Bethesda by Arna Bontemps; Letters Found Near a Suicide by Frank Horne; Morning Light by Mary Effie Lee Newsome; Dunbar by Anne Spencer

The Century for My City by James Weldon Johnson

Vanity Fair for Bottled by Helene Johnson

Palms for A Tree Design by Arna Bontemps; Lines to a Nasturtium by Anne Spencer; Black Madonna by Albert Rice; Words! Words! by Jessie Fauset; Magula by Helene Johnson; and The Mask by Clarissa Scott Delany

Fire for Jungle Taste by Edward S. Silvera; Length of Moon by Arna Bontemps; The Death Bed by Waring Cuney

The World Tomorrow for A Black Man Talks of Reaping by Arna Bontemps

The Survey for Russian Cathedral by Claude McKay

The Atlantic Monthly for Nativity and The Serving Girl by Gladys Casley Hayford

The Carolina Magazine for The Dark Brother by Lewis Alexander

 

CONTENTS

Foreword		ix
Paul Laurence Dunbar
	Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes	2
	Death Song	4
	Life	5
	After the Quarrel	5
	Ships that Pass in the Night	7
	We Wear the Mask	8
	Sympathy	8
	The Debt	9
Joseph S. Cotter, Sr.
	The Tragedy of Pete	11
	The Way-side Well	15
James Weldon Johnson
	From the German of Uhland	17
	The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face	18
	The Creation	19
	The White Witch	22
	My City	25
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
	A Litany of Atlanta	26
William Stanley Braithwaite
	Scintilla	31
	Rye Bread	31
	October XXIX, 1795	32
	Del Cascar	33
James Edward McCall
	The New Negro	34
Angelina Weld Grimké
	Hushed by the Hands of Sleep	36
	Greenness	36
	The Eyes of My Regret	37
	Grass Fingers	38
	Surrender	38
	The Ways o’ Men	39
	Tenebris	40
	When the Green Lies Over the Earth	41
	A Mona Lisa	42
	Paradox	43
	Your Hands	44
	I Weep	45
	For the Candle Light	45
	Dusk	46
	The Puppet Player	46
	A Winter Twilight	46
Anne Spencer
	Neighbors	47
	I Have a Friend	47
	Substitution	48
	Questing	48
	Life-long, Poor Browning	49
	Dunbar	50
	Innocence	51
	Creed	51
	Lines to a Nasturtium	52
	At the Carnival	53
Mary Effie Lee Newsome
	Morning Light	55
	Pansy	56
	Sassafras Tea	56
	Sky Pictures	57
	The Quilt	58
	The Baker’s Boy	58
	Wild Roses	59
	Quoits	59
John Frederick Matheus
	Requiem	61
Fenton Johnson
	When I Die	62
	Puck Goes to Court	63
	The Marathon Runner	64
Jessie Fauset
	Words! Words!	65
	Touché	66
	Noblesse Oblige	67
	La Vie C’est la Vie	69
	The Return	70
	Rencontre	70
	Fragment	70
Alice Dunbar Nelson
	Snow in October	71
	Sonnet	72
	I Sit and Sew	73
Georgia Douglas Johnson
	Service	75
	Hope	75
	The Suppliant	76
	Little Son	76
	Old Black Men	77
	Lethe	77
	Proving	77
	I Want to Die While You Love Me	78
	Recessional	79
	My Little Dreams	79
	What Need Have I for Memory?	80
	When I Am Dead	80
	The Dreams of the Dreamer	80
	The Heart of a Woman	81
Claude McKay
	America	83
	Exhortation: Summer, 1919	84
	Flame-heart	85
	The Wild Goat	87
	Russian Cathedral	87
	Desolate	88
	Absence	91
	My House	92
Jean Toomer
	Reapers	94
	Evening Song	94
	Georgia Dusk	95
	Song of the Son	96
	Cotton Song	97
	Face	98
	November Cotton Flower	99
Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.
	Rain Music	100
	Supplication	101
	An April Day	102
	The Deserter	102
	And What Shall You Say?	103
	The Band of Gideon	103
Blanche Taylor Dickinson
	The Walls of Jericho	106
	Poem	107
	Revelation	107
	That Hill	109
	To an Icicle	110
	Four Walls	110
Frank Horne
	On Seeing Two Brown Boys in a Catholic Church	112
	To a Persistent Phantom	113
	Letters Found Near a Suicide	114
	Nigger	120
Lewis Alexander
	Negro Woman	122
	Africa	123
	Transformation	124
	The Dark Brother	124
	Tanka I—VIII	125
	Japanese Hokku	127
	Day and Night	129
Sterling A. Brown
	Odyssey of Big Boy	130
	Maumee Ruth	133
	Long Gone	134
	To a Certain Lady, in Her Garden	136
	Salutamus	138
	Challenge	138
	Return	139
Clarissa Scott Delany
	Joy	140
	Solace	141
	Interim	142
	The Mask	143
Langston Hughes
	I, Too	145
	Prayer	146
	Song for a Dark Girl	147
	Homesick Blues	147
	Fantasy in Purple	148
	Dream Variation	149
	The Negro Speaks of Rivers	149
	Poem	150
	Suicide’s Note	151
	Mother to Son	151
	A House in Taos	152
Gwendolyn B. Bennett
	Quatrains	155
	Secret	155
	Advice	156
	To a Dark Girl	157
	Your Songs	157
	Fantasy	158
	Lines Written at at the Grave of Alexander Dumas	159
	Hatred	160
	Sonnet—1	160
	Sonnet—2	161
Arna Bontemps
	The Return	163
	A Black Man Talks of Reaping	165
	To a Young Girl Leaving the Hill Country	165
	Nocturne at Bethesda	166
	Length of Moon	168
	Lancelot	169
	Gethsemane	169
	A Tree Design	170
	Blight	170
	The Day-breakers	171
	Close Your Eyes!	171
	God Give to Men	172
	Homing	172
	Golgotha Is a Mountain	173
Albert Rice
	The Black Madonna	177
Countee Cullen
	Lines to Our Elders	179
	I Have a Rendezvous with Life	180
	Protest	181
	Yet Do I Marvel	182
	To Lovers of Earth: Fair Warning	182
	From the Dark Tower	183
	To John Keats, Poet, at Springtime	184
	Four Epitaphs	186
	Incident	187
Donald Jeffrey Hayes
	Inscription	188
	Auf Wiedersehen	189
	Night	189
	Confession	190
	Nocturne	190
	After All	191
Jonathan Henderson Brooks
	The Resurrection	193
	The Last Quarter Moon of the Dying Year	195
	Paean	195
Gladys May Casely Hayford
	Nativity	197
	Rainy Season Love Song	198
	The Serving Girl	200
	Baby Cobina	200
Lucy Ariel Williams
	Northboun’	201
George Leonard Allen
	To Melody	204
	Portrait	204
Richard Bruce
	Shadow	206
	Cavalier	207
Waring Cuney
	The Death Bed	208
	A Triviality	209
	I Think I See Him There	210
	Dust	210
	No Images	212
	The Radical	212
	True Love	213
Edward S. Silvera
	South Street	214
	Jungle Taste	214
Helene Johnson
	What Do I Care for Morning	216
	Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem	217
	Summer Matures	217
	Poem	218
	Fulfillment	219
	The Road	221
	Bottled	221
	Magalu	223
Wesley Curtwright
	The Close of Day	225
Lula Lowe Weeden
	Me Alone	227
	Have You Seen It	228
	Robin Red Breast	228
	The Stream	228
	The Little Dandelion	229
	Dance	229
Index		231