How would you have us, as we are? Or sinking 'neath the load we bear… Our eyes fixed forward on a star? Or gazing empty at despair? Rising or falling? Men or things?

O brothers mine, to-day we stand Where half a century sweeps our ke… Since God, through Lincoln’s read… Struck off our bonds and made us m… Just fifty years - a winter’s day…

Sunrise in the Tropics Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the trop… Here I wait with the trembling st… To see thee once more take thy thr… There the patient palm tree watchi…

O black and unknown bards of long… How came your lips to touch the sa… How, in your darkness, did you com… The power and beauty of the minstr… Who first from midst his bonds lif…

Skin as black an’ jes as sof’ as a… Teeth as white as ivory '€”well de… Eyes dat’s jes as big an’ bright a… An’ dat hol’ some sort o’ light lu… Hair don’t hang 'way down her back…

(A Warning) ‘Simmons ripenin’ in de fall, You better run, Brudder 'Possum, run! Mockin’ bird commence to call,

O Sleep, thou kindest minister to… Silent distiller of the balm of re… How wonderful thy power, when naug… To soothe the torn and sorrow-lade… When bleeding hearts no comforter…

See! There he stands; not brave,… Of sullen stupor. Mark him well!… Not more like brute than man? Loo… No light is there; none, save the… In the now glaring, and now shifti…

I dreamed that I was a rose That grew beside a lonely way, Close by a path none ever chose, And there I lingered day by day. Beneath the sunshine and the show’…

O whitened head entwined in turban… O kind black face, O crude, but t… O foster-mother in whose arms ther… The race whose sons are masters of… It was thine arms that sheltered i…

O, brothers mine, take care! Take… The great white witch rides out to… Trust not your prowess nor your st… Your only safety lies in flight; For in her glance there is a snare…

Twenty years go by on noiseless fe… He returns, and once again they me… She exclaims, ‘Good heavens! and… He mutters, ‘My God! and that is…

(A Negro Serenade) De river is a-glistenin’ in de moo… De owl is set’n high up in de tree… De little stars am twinklin’ wid a… De night seems only jes fu’ you an…

For fifty years, Cruel, insatiable Old World. You have punched me over the heart Till you made me cough blood. The few paltry things I gathered

Tiny bit of humanity, Blessed with your mother’s face, And cursed with your father’s mind… I say cursed with your father’s mi… Because you can lie so long and so…