HEGIRA
HEGIRA
Oh, black man, why do you northward roam, and leave all the farm lands bare?Is your house not warm, tightly thatched from storm, and a larder replete your share?And have you not schools, fit with books and tools the steps of your young to guide?Then what do you seek, in the north cold and bleak, 'mid the whirl of its teeming tide?
I have toiled in your cornfields, and parched in the sun, I have bowed 'neath your load of care,I have patiently garnered your bright golden grain, in season of storm and fair,With a smile I have answered your glowering gloom, while my wounded heart quivering bled,Trailing mute in. your wake, as your rosy dawn breaks, while I curtain the mound of my dead.
Though my children are taught in the schools you have wrought, they are blind to the sheen of the sky,
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