Song for a Dark Girl

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. 

Credit

From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.