Color (Cullen)/The Shroud of Color

by Countee Cullen

The Shroud of Color

(For Llewellyn Ransom)

"LORD, being dark," I said, "I cannot bearThe further touch of earth, the scented air;Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despairMy color shrouds me in, I am as dirtBeneath my brother's heel; there is a hurtIn all the simple joys which to a childAre sweet; they are contaminate, defiledBy truths of wrongs the childish vision failsTo see; too great a cost this birth entails.I strangle in this yoke drawn tighter thanThe worth of bearing it, just to be man.I am not brave enough to pay the priceIn full; I lack the strength to sacrifice.I who have burned my hands upon a star,And climbed high hills at dawn to view the farIllimitable wonderments of earth,For whom all cups have dripped the wine of mirth,For whom the sea has strained her honeyed throat Till all the world was sea, and I a boatUnmoored, on what strange quest I willed to float;Who wore a many-colored coat of dreams,Thy gift, O Lord—I whom sun-dabbled streamsHave washed, whose bare brown thighs have held the sunIncarcerate until his course was run,I who considered man a high-perfectedGlass where loveliness could lie reflected,Now that I sway athwart Truth's deep abyss,Denuding man for what he was and is,Shall breath and being so inveigle meThat I can damn my dreams to hell, and beContent, each new-born day, anew to seeThe steaming crimson vintage of my youthIncarnadine the altar-slab of Truth?

Or hast Thou, Lord, somewhere I cannot see, A lamb imprisoned in a bush for me?

Not so? Then let me render one by oneThy gifts, while still they shine; some little sunYet gilds these thighs; my coat, albeit worn,Still holds its colors fast; albeit torn, My heart will laugh a little yet, if IMay win of Thee this grace, Lord: on this highAnd sacrificial hill 'twixt earth and sky,To dream still pure all that I loved, and die.There is no other way to keep secureMy wild chimeras; grave-locked against the lureOf Truth, the small hard teeth of worms, yet lessEnvenomed than the mouth of Truth, will blessThem into dust and happy nothingness.Lord, Thou art God; and I, Lord, what am IBut dust? With dust my place. Lord, let me die."

Across the earth's warm, palpitating crustI flung my body in embrace; I thrustMy mouth into the grass and sucked the dew,Then gave it back in tears my anguish drew;So hard I pressed against the ground, I feltThe smallest sandgrain like a knife, and smeltThe next year's flowering; all this to speedMy body's dissolution, fain to feedThe worms. And so I groaned, and spent my strength Until, all passion spent, I lay full length And quivered like a flayed and bleeding thing.

So lay till lifted on a great black wingThat had no mate nor flesh-apparent trunkTo hamper it; with me all time had sunkInto oblivion; when I awokeThe wing hung poised above two cliffs that brokeThe bowels of the earth in twain, and cleftThe seas apart. Below, above, to left,To right, I saw what no man saw before:Earth, hell, and heaven; sinew, vein, and core.All things that swim or walk or creep or fly,All things that live and hunger, faint and die,Were made majestic then and magnifiedBy sight so clearly purged and deified.The smallest bug that crawls was taller thanA tree, the mustard seed loomed like a man.The earth that writhes eternally with painOf birth, and woe of taking back her slain,Laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight,And all was struggle, gasping breath, and fight.A blind worm here dug tunnels to the light,And there a seed, racked with heroic pain,Thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain; It climbed; it died; the old love conquered meTo weep the blossom it would never be.But here a bud won light; it burst and floweredInto a rose whose beauty challenged, "Coward!"There was no thing alive save only IThat held life in contempt and longed to die.And still I writhed and moaned, "The curse, the curse,Than animated death, can death be worse?"

"Dark child of sorrow, mine no less, what artOf mine can make thee see and play thy part?The key to all strange things is in thy heart."

What voice was this that coursed like liquid fire Along my flesh, and turned my hair to wire?

I raised my burning eyes, beheld a field All multitudinous with carnal yield, A grim ensanguined mead whereon I saw Evolve the ancient fundamental law Of tooth and talon, fist and nail and claw. There with the force of living, hostile hills Whose clash the hemmed-in vale with clamor fills, With greater din contended fierce majestic willsOf beast with beast, of man with man, in strifeFor love of what my heart despised, for lifeThat unto me at dawn was now a prayerFor night, at night a bloody heart-wrung tearFor day again; for this, these groansFrom tangled flesh and interlockèd bones.And no thing died that did not giveA testimony that it longed to live.Man, strange composite blend of brute and god,Pushed on, nor backward glanced where last he trod.He seemed to mount a misty ladder flungPendant from a cloud, yet never gained a rungBut at his feet another tugged and clung.My heart was still a pool of bitterness,Would yield nought else, nought else confess.I spoke (although no form was thereTo see, I knew an ear was there to hear),"Well, let them fight; they can whose flesh is fair."

Crisp lightning flashed; a wave of thunder shook My wing; a pause, and then a speaking, "Look."

I scarce dared trust my ears or eyes for aweOf what they heard, and dread of what they saw;For, privileged beyond degree, this fleshBeheld God and His heaven in the meshOf Lucifer's revolt, saw LuciferGlow like the sun, and like a dulcimerI heard his sin-sweet voice break on the yellOf God's great warriors: Gabriel,Saint Clair and Michael, Israfel and Raphael.And strange it was to see God with His backAgainst a wall, to see Christ hew and hackTill Lucifer, pressed by the mighty pair,And losing inch by inch, clawed at the airWith fevered wings; then, lost beyond repair,He tricked a mass of stars into his hair;He filled his hands with stars, crying as he fell,"A star's a star although it burns in hell."So God was left to His divinity,Omnipotent at that most costly fee.

There was a lesson here, but still the clod In me was sycophant unto the rod, And cried, "Why mock me thus? Am I a god?"

"One trial more: this failing, then I giveYou leave to die; no further need to live."

Now suddenly a strange wild music smoteA chord long impotent in me; a noteOf jungles, primitive and subtle, throbbedAgainst my echoing breast, and tom-toms sobbedIn every pulse-beat of my frame. The dinA hollow log bound with a python's skinCan make wrought every nerve to ecstasy,And I was wind and sky again, and sea,And all sweet things that flourish, being free.

Till all at once the music changed its key.

And now it was of bitterness and death,The cry the lash extorts, the broken breath Of liberty enchained; and yet there ran Through all a harmony of faith in man,A knowledge all would end as it began.All sights and sounds and aspects of my race Accompanied this melody, kept paceWith it; with music all their hopes and hates Were charged, not to be downed by all the fates.And somehow it was borne upon my brainHow being dark, and living through the painOf it, is courage more than angels have. I knewWhat storms and tumults lashed the tree that grewThis body that I was, this cringing IThat feared to contemplate a changing sky,This that I grovelled, whining, "Let me die,"While others struggled in Life's abattoir.The cries of all dark people near or farWere billowed over me, a mighty surgeOf suffering in which my puny grief must mergeAnd lose itself; I had no further claim to urgeFor death; in shame I raised my dust-grimed head,And though my lips moved not, God knew I said,"Lord, not for what I saw in flesh or boneOf fairer men; not raised on faith alone;Lord, I will live persuaded by mine own.T cannot play the recreant to these;My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas." With the whiz of a sword that severs space,The wing dropped down at a dizzy pace,And flung me on my hill flat on my face;Flat on my face I lay defying pain,Glad of the blood in my smallest vein,And in my hands I clutched a loyal dream,Still spitting fire, bright twist and coil and gleam,And chiselled like a hound's white tooth."Oh, I will match you yet," I cried, "to truth."

Right glad I was to stoop to what I once had spurned,Glad even unto tears; I laughed aloud; I turnedUpon my back, and though the tears for joy would run,My sight was clear; I looked and saw the rising sun.