Category Archives: Poetry

Paean (1915)

Otto L. Bohanan; Crisis, March 1915

Keep me in chains! I defy you!
That is a pow’r I deny you!
I will sing! I will rise!
Up! To the lurid skies–
With the smoke of my soul,
With my last breath,
Tar-feathered, I shall cry:
Ethiopia shall not die!
And hand in hand with Death,
Pass on!
I shall not curse you. But singing–
My singing! fatefully ringing
Till startled and dumb
You falter, the sum
Of your crime shall reveal–
This do I prophesy . . .
O Heart wrung dry!
Awake!
Startle the world with thy cry:
Ethiopia shall not die!

Up in Front (1909)

Welborn Victor Jenkins; Atlanta Independent, June 19, 1909

(Written by a trainman in appreciation of the boys who fired the trains on the Georgia road.)

1.
 No muse will sing of our deeds of nerve,
    No plaudits for us when our course is won;
 For we are naught but the dogs who serve,
    And silence must keep when the struggle is done.
 Yet we know best of all that our hearts are right,
    So we bend to our task till the saf'ty pops, "ziz."
 We fire our engines with all our might,
    But we're up in front where the danger is. Continue reading →

Out of the Smoke (1917)

Geraldine M. Campbell [?]; Chicago Defender, July 21, 1917

To the God of all the heaven, to the God of just and right,
To the God of strength and power, to the God of wield and might,
To the God of ever nation, every country, every creed,
To the God that keeps a record of every act, and every deed,
   Dost Thou hear our cries and groanings,
   Dost Thou know our pains and moanings?
       How much longer must we wait?

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