Short Poems

Truth, be more precious to me than the eyes
Of happy love; burn hotter in my throat
Than passion; and possess me like my pride;
More sweet than freedom; more desired than joy;
More sacred than the pleasing of a friend.

Trust not that thing called woman: she is worse
Than all ingredients crammed into a curse.
Were she but ugly, peevish, proud, a whore,
Poxed, painted, perjured, so she were no more,
I could forgive her, and connive at this,
Alleging still she but a woman is.
But she is worse: in time she will forestall
The Devil, and be the damning of us all

True wisdom is in leaning
On Jesus Christ, our Lord;
True wisdom is in trusting
His own life-giving word;
True wisdom is in living
Near Jesus every day;
True wisdom is in walking
Where He shall lead the way.

We cry among the skyscrapers
As our ancestors
Cried among the palms in Africa
Because we are alone,
It is night,
And we're afraid.

True Englishmen, drink a good health to the miter;
Let our church ever flourish, though her enemies spite her.
May their cunning and forces no longer prevail;
And their malice, as well as their arguments, fail.
Then remember the Seven, which supported our cause,
As stout as our martyrs and as just as our laws!

True-blue the salmon—from his sally
Back to the redds he'll roam.
When weary of the towns' stale tally
Lovely to look to home.

I do not hate you,
For your faces are beautiful, too.
I do not hate you,
Your faces are whirling lights of loveliness and splendor, too.
Yet why do you torture me,
O, white strong ones,
Why do you torture me?

Does a jazz-band ever sob?
They say a jazz-band's gay.
Yet as the vulgar dancers whirled
And the wan night wore away,
One said she heard the jazz-band sob
When the little dawn was grey.

I looked at their black faces
And this is what I saw:
The wind imprisoned in the flesh,
The sun bound down by law.
I watched them moving, moving,
Like water down the street,
And this is what moved in my heart:
Their far-too-humble feet.

Voices crying in the wilderness
At so much per word
From the white folks:
" Be meek and humble,
All you niggers,
And do not cry