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The dew is on the grasses, dear,
The blush is on the rose,
And swift across our dial-youth,
A shifting shadow goes.
The primrose moments, lush with bliss.
Exhale and fade away,
Life may renew the Autumn time,
But nevermore the May!
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
One drop of midnight in the dawn of life’s pulsating stream
Marks her an alien from her kind, a shade amid its gleam.
Forevermore her step she bends, insular, strange, apart—
And none can read the riddle of her strangely warring heart.
The stormy current of her blood beats like a mighty sea
Against the man-wrought iron bars of her captivity.
Would I might mend the fabric of my youth
That daily flaunts its tatters to my eyes,
Would I might compromise awhile with truth
Until our moon now waxing, wanes and dies.
I’m folding up my little dreams
Within my heart tonight,
And praying I may soon forget
The torture of their sight.
For Time’s deft fingers scroll my brow
With fell relentless art—
I’m folding up my little dreams
Tonight, within my heart!