II. ad astra

Raymond G. Dandridge

It is not great poetry that Dandridge is giving to the world, but it is poetry. His musings shaped into rhyme reach the heart. They have sweetness and light—“the two most precious things in theworld.” All the art he has acquired, untaught, from his reading and unaided thinking. Naturally one would not expect that art to be flawless. His initial poem, while not literally a self-description, will serve to introduce this adopted son of the lyric Muse:

THE POET

The poet sits and dreams and dreams;He scans his verse; he probes his themes.Then turns to stretch or stir about,Lest, like his thoughts, his strength give out.Then off to bed, for he must riseAnd cord some wood, or tamp some ties,Or break a field of fertile soil,Or do some other manual toil.He dare not live by wage of pen,Most poorly paid of poor paid men,With shoes o’er-run, and threadbare clothes,—And editors among the foesWho mock his song, deny him bread,Then sing his praise when he is dead.

The poet sits and dreams and dreams;He scans his verse; he probes his themes.

Then turns to stretch or stir about,Lest, like his thoughts, his strength give out.

Then off to bed, for he must riseAnd cord some wood, or tamp some ties,

Or break a field of fertile soil,Or do some other manual toil.

He dare not live by wage of pen,Most poorly paid of poor paid men,

With shoes o’er-run, and threadbare clothes,—And editors among the foes

Who mock his song, deny him bread,Then sing his praise when he is dead.

A secret consolation is intimated in the following lines:

TO—

Though many are the dreams I dream,They’re born within a single theme.The same kind voice I ever hear,Instilling faith, upbraiding fear:The same consoling smile appearsTo snuff my sighs and dry my tears:And fondest heart, of purest gold,Is hers whose name I here withhold,And pray naught ever change my theme,Or wake me from my dream.

Reflections upon the deeper meanings of life and death are inevitable to one situated as Mr. Dandridge is, provided he is given to serious reflections at all. And the thoughts of such a person are apt to have value for their sincerity. Two brief meditations in rhyme, as we may call them, will represent his thinking on such themes:

TIME TO DIE

Black Brother, think you life so sweetThat you would live at any price?Does mere existence balance withThe weight of your great sacrifice?Or, can it be you fear the graveEnough to live and die a slave?O, Brother! be it better said,When you are gone and tears are shed,That your death was the stepping stoneYour children’s children cross’d upon.Men have died that men might live:Look every foeman in the eye!If necessary, your life giveFor something, ere in vain you die.

ETERNITY

Vast realm beyond the gate of death,Where craven scavengers and kings,Alike, with passing final breath,Relinquish claim to earthly things:Endless, unexplored expanse,Where souls, bereft of mortal clay,Wander at will, in peace, perchance—Perchance in strife, who dare would say?

Vast realm beyond the gate of death,Where craven scavengers and kings,Alike, with passing final breath,Relinquish claim to earthly things:

Endless, unexplored expanse,Where souls, bereft of mortal clay,Wander at will, in peace, perchance—Perchance in strife, who dare would say?

Even in the confinement to which his affliction has subjected him, Mr. Dandridge has felt the strong pulse-throbs of his people’s new kindled aspirations. The strength of the soul may indeed increase with the weakness of the body. These lines are surely not wanting in the passion without which “facts” are cold:

FACTS

Triumphant Sable Heroes homeward turning,Arrayed in medals bright, and half-healed scars,Have service, life, and limb been given earningTrophies issued at the hand of Mars?If your sole gain has been these “marks of battle,”If valiant deeds insure no greater claim,If you are still to be the herder’s cattle,Then ill spilt blood fell short of Freedom’s aim.Democracy means more than empty letters,And Liberty far more than partly free;Yet, both are void as long as men in fettersAre at eclipse with Opportunity.

Triumphant Sable Heroes homeward turning,Arrayed in medals bright, and half-healed scars,Have service, life, and limb been given earningTrophies issued at the hand of Mars?

If your sole gain has been these “marks of battle,”If valiant deeds insure no greater claim,If you are still to be the herder’s cattle,Then ill spilt blood fell short of Freedom’s aim.

Democracy means more than empty letters,And Liberty far more than partly free;Yet, both are void as long as men in fettersAre at eclipse with Opportunity.

George Marion McClellan

Aptly has Mr. McClellan entitled his book of poemsThe Path of Dreams. A dreamer is he and the home of his spirit is dreamland:

Sweet-scented winds move inward from the shore,Blythe is the air of June with silken gleams,My roving fancy treads at will once moreThe golden path of dreams.

And that path leads the poet ever back to the golden days of his youth, when Southern suns and Southern moons steeped his very being in dreams and Southern birds gave him their melodies and Southern mountains lifted his soul heavenward. A wanderer upon the earth he appears to have been, and as all wanderers’ hearts turn back to some loved region or spot so his to Dixie. Seldom has the longing for distant, remembered scenes, for spring’s returning and for summer’s glow, been more sweetly expressed in rhyme than in the various poems ofThe Path of Dreams. Andyet, sweeter songs than those are locked up in his breast, not to be sung:

The summer sweetness fills my heart with songsI cannot sing, with loves I cannot speak.

When harsh necessity imprisons him in the city he sighs:

I think the sight of fields and shady lanesWould ease my heart of pains.

But what contradictions poets have ever found in their experiences! The ministrants of joy but wring the cry of pain from the yearning heart. Lovely May is harder to endure, in exile, than gloomy December. The city’s discordant cries may be endured, bringing neither grief nor joy, while a bird’s carol may be exquisite torture:

The woodlark’s tender warbling lay,Which flows with melting art,Is but a trembling song of loveThat serves to break my heart.

Musing on whatever scene, the poet’s thoughts are tinged with that sadness which to every sensitive nature has a sweetness in it:

The sun went down in beauty,While I stood musing alone,Stood watching the rushing riverAnd heard its restless moan;Longings, vague, intenable,So far from speech apart,Like the endless rush of the river,Went surging through my heart.

With no less sadness or beauty, and with that philosophy towards which poetry ever has a bias, our poet of dreams thus reflects, on watching the ephemera that dart with glimmering wings in keen delight where the breezes fling the sweets of May:

Creatures of gauze and velvet wings,With a day of gleams and flowers,Who knows—in the light of eternal things—Your life is less than ours?Weary at last, it is ours, like you,When our brief day is done,Folding our hands, to say adieu,And pass with the setting sun.

Creatures of gauze and velvet wings,With a day of gleams and flowers,Who knows—in the light of eternal things—Your life is less than ours?

Weary at last, it is ours, like you,When our brief day is done,Folding our hands, to say adieu,And pass with the setting sun.

One must say of George Marion McClellan: “Here is a finely touched spirit that responds deeply to the mystery and charm of mountains and starry skies, and that charm and mystery he is capable of expressing in stanzas of lyric beauty.” Every page of his book will confirm for the reader the estimate he may have formed from the quotations already given. Without rifling it of its choicest treasures I will put before the reader a few entire poems which I am sure will give increased delight on repeated readings:

TO HOLLYHOCKS

Gay hollyhocks with flaming bellsAnd waving plumes, as gently swellsThe breeze upon the Summer air,You bind me still with magic spellsWhen to the wind, in grave farewells,You bow in all your graces fair.You bring me back the childhood view,Where arching skies and deepest blueStretch on in endless lengths above;To see you so awakes anewLong past emotions, from which grewMy wild and first heart-throbs of love.There is in all your brilliant dyes,Your gorgeousness and azure skies,A joy like soothing summer rain;Yet in the scene there vaguely liesA something half akin to sighs,Along the borderland of pain.

You bring me back the childhood view,Where arching skies and deepest blueStretch on in endless lengths above;To see you so awakes anewLong past emotions, from which grewMy wild and first heart-throbs of love.

There is in all your brilliant dyes,Your gorgeousness and azure skies,A joy like soothing summer rain;Yet in the scene there vaguely liesA something half akin to sighs,Along the borderland of pain.

THE HILLS OF SEWANEE

Sewanee Hills of dear delight,Prompting my dreams that used to be,I know you are waiting me still to-nightBy the Unika Range of Tennessee.The blinking stars in endless space,The broad moonlight and silvery gleams,To-night caress your wind-swept face,And fold you in a thousand dreams.Your far outlines, less seen than felt,Which wind with hill propensities,In moonlight dreams I see you meltAway in vague immensities.And, far away, I still can feelYour mystery that ever speaksOf vanished things, as shadows stealAcross your breast and rugged peaks.O dear blue hills, that lie apart,And wait so patiently down there,Your peace takes hold upon my heartAnd makes its burden less to bear.

Sewanee Hills of dear delight,Prompting my dreams that used to be,I know you are waiting me still to-nightBy the Unika Range of Tennessee.

The blinking stars in endless space,The broad moonlight and silvery gleams,To-night caress your wind-swept face,And fold you in a thousand dreams.

Your far outlines, less seen than felt,Which wind with hill propensities,In moonlight dreams I see you meltAway in vague immensities.

And, far away, I still can feelYour mystery that ever speaksOf vanished things, as shadows stealAcross your breast and rugged peaks.

O dear blue hills, that lie apart,And wait so patiently down there,Your peace takes hold upon my heartAnd makes its burden less to bear.

THE FEET OF JUDAS

Christ washed the feet of Judas!The dark and evil passions of his soul,His secret plot, and sordidness complete,His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole,And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.Christ washed the feet of Judas!Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,His bargain with the priest, and more than this,In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim,Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.Christ washed the feet of Judas!And so ineffable his love ’twas meet,That pity fill his great forgiving heart,And tenderly he wash the traitor’s feet,Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.Christ washed the feet of Judas!And thus a girded servant, self-abased,Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heavenWas ever too great to wholly be effaced,And, though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.And so if we have ever felt the wrongOf trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:Christ washed the feet of Judas.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,His bargain with the priest, and more than this,In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim,Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!And so ineffable his love ’twas meet,That pity fill his great forgiving heart,And tenderly he wash the traitor’s feet,Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!And thus a girded servant, self-abased,Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heavenWas ever too great to wholly be effaced,And, though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.

And so if we have ever felt the wrongOf trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:Christ washed the feet of Judas.

IN MEMORY OF KATIE REYNOLDS, DYING

O Death!If thou hast aught of tenderness,Be kindly in thy touchOf her whose fragile slendernessWas overburdened muchWith life. And let her seem to go to sleep,As often does a tired child, when it has grownToo tired to longer weep.A rose but half in bloom—She is too young and beautiful to die,But yet, if she must go,Let her go out as goes a sighFrom tired life and woe.And let her keep, in death’s brief spaceThis side the grave, the dusky beauty stillBelonging to her face.She must have beenOf those upon the trembling lyreOf whom the poets sung:“Whom the gods love” and desireFade and “die young.”Her life so loved on earth was brief,But yet withal so beautiful there is no cause,But in our loss, for grief.

A rose but half in bloom—She is too young and beautiful to die,But yet, if she must go,Let her go out as goes a sighFrom tired life and woe.And let her keep, in death’s brief spaceThis side the grave, the dusky beauty stillBelonging to her face.

She must have beenOf those upon the trembling lyreOf whom the poets sung:“Whom the gods love” and desireFade and “die young.”Her life so loved on earth was brief,But yet withal so beautiful there is no cause,But in our loss, for grief.

This poet, formerly a school principal in Louisville, Kentucky, is now in Los Angeles, California, whither he took his tubercular son—in vain—endeavoring to establish there a sanitarium for persons of his race afflicted as his son was. For the third time:ad astra per aspera.

The following verses were written by a man in the Missouri State Penitentiary. He might prefer that his name be withheld. He will shortly go forth a free man and a better one—so resolved to be—with verses enough composed during his period of incarceration to make a small book:

SOMEBODY’S CHILD

Don’t be too quick to condemn me,Because I have made a bad start;Remember you see but the surface,And know not what’s in the heart.I may bear the marks of a sinful life,And I may have been a bit wild;But back of all remains this fact,That I am somebody’s child.My cheeks by tears may be polished,And my heart is no stranger to pain;I know what it is to be friendless,And to learn each affliction means gain.I may be out in life’s storm,And misfortune around me has piled;But kindly remember this little fact,That I am somebody’s child.Probably to-night you’ll be happy,In some joys or pleasures you’ll share:And that very same moment may find me,Tearfully pleading in prayer.So don’t be too harsh when you judge me,For your judgment with God will be filed;You would know—could you see past the surface—That I am somebody’s child.

My cheeks by tears may be polished,And my heart is no stranger to pain;I know what it is to be friendless,And to learn each affliction means gain.I may be out in life’s storm,And misfortune around me has piled;But kindly remember this little fact,That I am somebody’s child.

Probably to-night you’ll be happy,In some joys or pleasures you’ll share:And that very same moment may find me,Tearfully pleading in prayer.So don’t be too harsh when you judge me,For your judgment with God will be filed;You would know—could you see past the surface—That I am somebody’s child.

And so a fourth time the motto—or is it a proverb?—ad astra per aspera.

Now editor of the Richmond (Indiana)Blade, contributor of short-stories toThe Century Magazine, an honored citizen and the head of a respected family, Leon R. Harris was an orphan asylum’s ward. Most splendidly has he, yet in his early thirties, illustrated the old adage chosen as a heading for this chapter. His father, a roving musician, took no interest in the future poet.His mother died and left him almost in the cradle. The orphanage which became his refuge gave him at least food, shelter, and schooling to the fourth grade. Then he was given to a Kentucky family to be reared. It was virtual slavery, and the boy ran away from over-work and beatings. Making his escape to Cincinnati he was befriended by a traveling salesman and began to find himself. At eleven years of age, some of his verses were printed in a Cincinnati daily with “Author Unknown” attached. He now made his way to Berea and worked his way for two years in that good old college. Then for three years he worked his way in Tuskegee.

Leon R. Harris

We next find him in Iowa, married; then in North Carolina, teaching school; then in Ohio, working in steel mills. This last was his employment until about two years ago. His short stories and poems are right out of his life. In the former the peonage system, prevalent in some sections of the South, and the cruelties of the convict laborcamps are more powerfully portrayed than anywhere else in American literature. The following poem will represent his writings in verse:

THE STEEL MAKERS

Filled with the vigor such jobs demand,Strong of muscle and steady of hand,Before the flaming furnaces standThe men who make the steel.’Midst the sudden sounds of falling bars,’Midst the clang and bang of cranes and cars,Where the earth beneath them jerks and jars,They work with willing zeal.They meet each task as they meet each day,Ready to labor and full of play;Their faces are grimy, their hearts are gay,There is sense in the songs they sing;While stooped like priests at the holy mass,In the beaming light of the lurid gas,Their jet black shadows each other pass,And their hammers loudly ring.What do they see through the furnace door,From which the dazzling white lights pour?Ah, more than the sizzling liquid oreThey see as they gaze within!For a band of steel engirdles the earth,Binds men to men from their very birth,Through all that exists of any worthThere courses a steely vein.Steamers that ply o’er the ocean deep,Trains which over the mountains creep,The ships of the air that dart and leapWhere the screaming eagles soar;The plow which produces the nation’s food,The bars that keep the bad from the good,Skyscrapers standing where forests stood,They see through their furnace door.They see the secretive submarines,And the noisy, whirring big machines,Grinding steel into numberless thingsThe people know and need;The scissors that fashion wee babies’ clothes,The beds where the pallid sick repose,The knife that the nervy surgeon holdsO’er the wounds that gape and bleed.Yet more they see through the furnace door!They see the bursting hot shells pourOn the battle-fields as in days of yoreThe Deluge waters fell.They see the bloody bayonet blade,The unsheathed sword and the hand grenade,The havoc, the wreck and the ruin madeBy the steel they roll and sell.All this through the furnace door they seeAs they work and laugh—they are full and free;Their steel has purchased their libertyFrom want and the tyrant’s sway.And just as long as their gas shall burn,In times of need will the people turnTo them for their product and they shall learnIts value endures for aye.For of what they make we are servants all,They have bound our lives in an iron thrall,We do their bidding, we heed their call,As they work with willing zeal.So tap your heats with a courage bold,You’re worth to your world a thousand foldMore than the men who mine her gold,You men who make her steel!

They meet each task as they meet each day,Ready to labor and full of play;Their faces are grimy, their hearts are gay,There is sense in the songs they sing;While stooped like priests at the holy mass,In the beaming light of the lurid gas,Their jet black shadows each other pass,And their hammers loudly ring.

What do they see through the furnace door,From which the dazzling white lights pour?Ah, more than the sizzling liquid oreThey see as they gaze within!For a band of steel engirdles the earth,Binds men to men from their very birth,Through all that exists of any worthThere courses a steely vein.

Steamers that ply o’er the ocean deep,Trains which over the mountains creep,The ships of the air that dart and leapWhere the screaming eagles soar;The plow which produces the nation’s food,The bars that keep the bad from the good,Skyscrapers standing where forests stood,They see through their furnace door.

They see the secretive submarines,And the noisy, whirring big machines,Grinding steel into numberless thingsThe people know and need;The scissors that fashion wee babies’ clothes,The beds where the pallid sick repose,The knife that the nervy surgeon holdsO’er the wounds that gape and bleed.

Yet more they see through the furnace door!They see the bursting hot shells pourOn the battle-fields as in days of yoreThe Deluge waters fell.They see the bloody bayonet blade,The unsheathed sword and the hand grenade,The havoc, the wreck and the ruin madeBy the steel they roll and sell.

All this through the furnace door they seeAs they work and laugh—they are full and free;Their steel has purchased their libertyFrom want and the tyrant’s sway.And just as long as their gas shall burn,In times of need will the people turnTo them for their product and they shall learnIts value endures for aye.

For of what they make we are servants all,They have bound our lives in an iron thrall,We do their bidding, we heed their call,As they work with willing zeal.So tap your heats with a courage bold,You’re worth to your world a thousand foldMore than the men who mine her gold,You men who make her steel!

Intrinsic merit is in that poem, apart from the circumstance of its being written by a workman himself. As an interpretation of the life of his fellow-workmen—their imaginative, inner life—it is a human document to be reflected upon. As for the artistic quality of the verses they place you in imagination amid the sights and sounds described and they have something in them suggestive of the steel bars the men are making.

In what strange disguises comes ofttimes the call to nobler things! Our happiness not seldom springs out of seeming misfortune. An illustration is afforded by Mr. Irvin W. Underhill, of Philadelphia, to whom blindness brought a more glorious seeing—the seeing of truth, of greater meaning in life, of greater beauty in the world. Out of this new vision springs a corresponding message in verse, a message not of bitterness for

Irvin W. Underhill

what might to another man, in the middle years of his life, have seemed a bitter loss, but of love, and exhortation, and encouragement. Blind, he lives in the Light. In his little book, entitledDaddy’s Love and Other Poems, are poems witnessing to a beautiful spirit, poems of beauty. Because of its sage counsel, however, I pass over some of these lovelier expressions of sentiment and choose a didactic piece:

TO OUR BOYS

I speak to you, my Colored boys,I bid you to be men,Don’t put yourselves upon the rackLike pigeons in a pen.Come out and face life’s problem, boys,With faith and courage too,And justify that wondrous faith,Abe Lincoln had in you.Don’t treat life as a little toy,A dance or a game of ball;Those things are all right in their place,But they are not life’s all.Life is a problem serious,Give it the best you have,Succeed in all you undertakeAnd help your brother live.If farming seems to be your call,Then take hold of the plough,And stick it down into the soilTill sweat runs down your brow.Then make this resolution firm:“I’m going to do my best,And stick this good old plough of mineDown deeper than the rest.”If you’re to be a carpenterThen train your hand and eyeTo work out angles, clean and clearAs any metal die.Then read up on materials,On beauty and on style,And prove to all, the house you buildIs sure to be worth while.Why sure, a banker, you can be,A lawyer or a priest;Or you can be a merchant prince,Their work is not the least.It makes no difference what you tryIf you would get the best,You’ll have to stick that plough of yoursDown deeper than the rest.Don’t fawn up to another manAnd beg him for a job;Remember that your brain and hisWere made by the same God.So use it boys, with all your might,With faith and courage too,And justify that wondrous faithAbe Lincoln had in you.

Don’t treat life as a little toy,A dance or a game of ball;Those things are all right in their place,But they are not life’s all.Life is a problem serious,Give it the best you have,Succeed in all you undertakeAnd help your brother live.

If farming seems to be your call,Then take hold of the plough,And stick it down into the soilTill sweat runs down your brow.Then make this resolution firm:“I’m going to do my best,And stick this good old plough of mineDown deeper than the rest.”

If you’re to be a carpenterThen train your hand and eyeTo work out angles, clean and clearAs any metal die.Then read up on materials,On beauty and on style,And prove to all, the house you buildIs sure to be worth while.

Why sure, a banker, you can be,A lawyer or a priest;Or you can be a merchant prince,Their work is not the least.It makes no difference what you tryIf you would get the best,You’ll have to stick that plough of yoursDown deeper than the rest.

Don’t fawn up to another manAnd beg him for a job;Remember that your brain and hisWere made by the same God.So use it boys, with all your might,With faith and courage too,And justify that wondrous faithAbe Lincoln had in you.

There are tragic stories of Negro aspirants for poetic fame that read like the old stories of English poets in London in the days when the children of genius starved and died young. As typical of not a few there is the story of James C. Hughes, of Louisville, Kentucky. The LouisvilleTimes, March 10, 1905, contained his picture and an article by Joseph S. Cotter in appreciation of his compositions. “This young man,” writes Cotter, speaking of a collection of verses and prose sketches which Hughes then had ready for publication, “this young man has the essentials of the poet, and to me his work is interesting. It is serious, and preaches while it sings.”

To illustrate the range and quality of Hughes I will quote from this article two selections, one in prose and one in dialect verse:

ASPIRATION

“True love is the same to-day as when the vestal virgins held their mystic lights along the path of virtue. Virtue wears the same vesture that she wore upon the ancient plain that led to fame immortal. Now the royal gates of honor stand ajar for men of courage, souls who will not time their spirit-lyre to suit the common chord. Our nation has known men who held within their palms our country’s destiny: and, smiling in the armor of a fearless truth, have thrown away their lives. Awake, O countrymen, awake, this noble flame. The gods will fan it, and the world shall burn with honor and pure love.”

The bit of dialect verse follows, taken from a poem entitledApology for Wayward Jim:

“You has offen tole us, Massy,We’s as free as we kin be;But we needs some kind o’ check, suh,So’s we’d keep on bein’ free.“Please do’ whip ole Jim dis time, suh;Marse, I ’no’s you’s good an’ kind;Ain’t no slabery on dis ’arth, suh,Like de slabery ob de mind.“You has offen said obejenceWuz de key to freedom’s do’—When we l’arned dis golden lessonWe wuz free foreber mo’.“But you see dese darkies’ minds, suh,Ain’t so flexerbul as dat,Dey can’t zackly understand, suh,What you means by saying dat.’Hain’t but one compound solutionTo dis problem, as I see;Long’s a human soul’s a slabe, suh,Ain’t no way to make it free.”

“You has offen tole us, Massy,We’s as free as we kin be;But we needs some kind o’ check, suh,So’s we’d keep on bein’ free.

“Please do’ whip ole Jim dis time, suh;Marse, I ’no’s you’s good an’ kind;Ain’t no slabery on dis ’arth, suh,Like de slabery ob de mind.

“You has offen said obejenceWuz de key to freedom’s do’—When we l’arned dis golden lessonWe wuz free foreber mo’.

“But you see dese darkies’ minds, suh,Ain’t so flexerbul as dat,Dey can’t zackly understand, suh,What you means by saying dat.

’Hain’t but one compound solutionTo dis problem, as I see;Long’s a human soul’s a slabe, suh,Ain’t no way to make it free.”

The young author of these selections, failing to get his book published, lost his mind and “disappeared from view.” So ends his story.

Another sad story, more frequently repeated in the lives of the writers represented in this book, is that of Leland Milton Fisher. First I shall give one of his poems, as passionately sweet a lyric as can be found in American literature:

FOR YOU, SWEETHEART

For you, sweetheart, I’d have your skiesAs bright as are your own bright eyes,And all your day-dreams warm and fairAs is the sunshine in your hair.The Fates to you should be as kindAs are the thoughts in your pure mind,And every bird I’d have impartIts sweetest song to you, sweetheart.For you, sweetheart, I’d have each dartSorrow fashions for your tender heart,Thrust in my own thrice happy breast,That yours might have unbroken rest.If you should fall asleep and lieSo very still and quiet that IWould know your soul had slipped awayFrom your divinely molded clay,Then, looking in your fair, sweet faceI’d pray to God: “In thy good grace,O, Father, let me sleep, nor wakeAgain on earth, for her dear sake.”

For you, sweetheart, I’d have each dartSorrow fashions for your tender heart,Thrust in my own thrice happy breast,That yours might have unbroken rest.

If you should fall asleep and lieSo very still and quiet that IWould know your soul had slipped awayFrom your divinely molded clay,Then, looking in your fair, sweet faceI’d pray to God: “In thy good grace,O, Father, let me sleep, nor wakeAgain on earth, for her dear sake.”

Born in Humbolt, Tennessee, in 1875, Fisher died of tuberculosis, ere yet thirty years of age, leaving behind an unpublished volume of poems.

In another chapter I have written of a poet whose birthplace was Bardstown, Kentucky. W. Clarence Jordan, a Negro schoolmaster of Bardstown, now dead, wrote the following lines in answer to the questions, so frequently asked in derision, which stands as its title:

WHAT IS THE NEGRO DOING?

As we pass along life’s highway,Day by day,Thousands daily ask the question,“What, I pray,Tell me what’s the Negro doing?And what course is he pursuing?What achievements is he strewingBy the way?”Many say he’s retrogradingVery fast;Others say his glory’s fading,—Cannot last;That his prospects now are blighted,That his chances have been slighted,This his wrongs cannot be righted.Time has passed.Friends, lift up your eyes; look higher;Higher still.There’s the vanguard of our armyOn the hill.You’ve been looking at the rear guard.Lift your eyes, look farther forward;Thousands are still pressing starward—Ever will.

Many say he’s retrogradingVery fast;Others say his glory’s fading,—Cannot last;That his prospects now are blighted,That his chances have been slighted,This his wrongs cannot be righted.Time has passed.

Friends, lift up your eyes; look higher;Higher still.There’s the vanguard of our armyOn the hill.You’ve been looking at the rear guard.Lift your eyes, look farther forward;Thousands are still pressing starward—Ever will.

Roscoe C. Jamison was fortunate in leaving behind him a friend at his early death, some three years since, who treasured his fugitive verses sufficiently to gather them together, though but a handful, and send them out to the world in a little pamphlet. Fortunate also was he in another friend able to write his elegy:

Too soon is hushed his silver speech,The music dies upon his lute,The cadence falls beyond our reach;Too soon the Poet’s lips are mute.

Roscoe C. Jamison

So wrote in this elegy,Lacrimae Aethiopiae, Charles Bertram Johnson, of this untimely dead singer. Hardly a score of poems are in this pamphlet, yet enough are here to reveal a poet in the making. Jamison was a better poet, even in these imperfect pieces, than many a writer of better verses. Here are the ardent impulses and here are the glowing ideas from which poetry of the higher order springs. The art, however, is undisciplined, grammar, metre, and rhymes are sometimes at fault. However, bold strokes of poetry atone, the effects are the effects of a real poet. Sometimes one finds in the small collection a poem that is all but perfect, a production that might have come from a maturer craftsman. I venture to put him to the test in the following poem:

CASTLES IN THE AIR

I build my castles in the air.How beautiful they seem to me,Standing in all their glory there,Like stars above the sea!I watch them with admiring eyes,For in them dwells life’s fondest hope:If they be swept from out the skies,In darkness I must grope.They hold life’s joys, life’s sweetest dreams;They make the weary years seem bright.As one guided by bright starbeamsI struggle through the night.Sometimes from out the skies they fall,And my soul shrieks in its pain;But from the heights I hear Hope’s call,“Arise and build again.”What though life be with sorrow filledAnd each day brings its load of care,I’m happy still while I can buildMy castles in the air!

I build my castles in the air.How beautiful they seem to me,Standing in all their glory there,Like stars above the sea!

I watch them with admiring eyes,For in them dwells life’s fondest hope:If they be swept from out the skies,In darkness I must grope.

They hold life’s joys, life’s sweetest dreams;They make the weary years seem bright.As one guided by bright starbeamsI struggle through the night.

Sometimes from out the skies they fall,And my soul shrieks in its pain;But from the heights I hear Hope’s call,“Arise and build again.”

What though life be with sorrow filledAnd each day brings its load of care,I’m happy still while I can buildMy castles in the air!

Who but will say, despite the metrical defects, this is a real poem? Another poem will show his art at a better advantage, while the pathos is of another kind, very touching pathos it is, too:

A SONG

I loved you, Dear. I did not know how much,Until the silence of the Grave lay coldBetween us, and your hand I could not touch,And your sweet face, oh! never more behold.I loved you, Dear. I did not know how true,Until in other eyes I found no light;I know—alas!—my Spirit without youMust drift forever in a starless night!

I loved you, Dear. I did not know how much,Until the silence of the Grave lay coldBetween us, and your hand I could not touch,And your sweet face, oh! never more behold.

I loved you, Dear. I did not know how true,Until in other eyes I found no light;I know—alas!—my Spirit without youMust drift forever in a starless night!

A different kind of merit, the merit of intense reprobation of cruel arrogancy in the one race and of treacherous cowardice in the other, is exemplified inThe Edict. Triumphant faith, which is the Negro’s peculiar heritage, asserts itself in such a way, in the final stanza, as to lift the poem to the heights of moral feeling.

THE EDICT

All these must die before the Morning break:They who at God an angry finger shake,Declaring that because He made them White,Their race should rule the world by sacred right.They who deny a common Brotherhood—Who cry aloud, and think no Blackman good—The blood-cursed mob always eager to takeThe rope in hand or light the flaming stake,Jeering the wretch while he in death pain quakes—All these must die before the Morning breaks.All these must die before the Morning breaks:The Blackmen, faithless, whose loud laughter wakesHarsh echoes in the most unbiased places.They who choose vice, and scorn the gentle graces—Who by their manners breed contemptuous hate,Suggesting jim-crow laws from state to state—They who think on earth they may not findAn ideal man nor woman of their kind.But from some other Race that ideal take—All these must die before the Morning break!We know, O Lord, that there will come a time,When o’er the World will dawn the Age Sublime,When Truth shall call to all mankind to standBefore Thy throne as Brothers, hand in hand,Be not displeased with him who this song makes—All these must die before the Morning breaks!

All these must die before the Morning breaks:The Blackmen, faithless, whose loud laughter wakesHarsh echoes in the most unbiased places.They who choose vice, and scorn the gentle graces—Who by their manners breed contemptuous hate,Suggesting jim-crow laws from state to state—They who think on earth they may not findAn ideal man nor woman of their kind.But from some other Race that ideal take—All these must die before the Morning break!

We know, O Lord, that there will come a time,When o’er the World will dawn the Age Sublime,When Truth shall call to all mankind to standBefore Thy throne as Brothers, hand in hand,Be not displeased with him who this song makes—All these must die before the Morning breaks!

If lyric poetry be self-revealment—and such it is, or it is nothing—we can learn from the following poem how deep a sorrow at some time in his life this poet must have experienced:

HOPELESSNESS

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