There are no hollows any more
Between the mountains; the prairie floor
Is like a curtain with the drape
Of the winds’ invisible shape;
And nowhere seen and nowhere heard
The sea’s quiet as a sleeping bird.
Now we’re traveling, what holds back
Arrival, in the very track
Where the urge put forth; so we stay
And move a thousand miles a day
Time’s a Fancy ringing bells
Whose meaning, charlatan history, tells!
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922) edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.