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Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.