Langston Hughes - Selected poems of Langston Hughes

VINTAGE CLASSICS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 1990 Copyright 1959 by Langston Hughes
Copyright renewed 1987 by George Houston Bass, Surviving Executor of the Estate of Langston Hughes, Deceased All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1959. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hughes, Langston, 19021967.
[Poems. cm. (Vintage classics)
eISBN: 978-0-307-94940-0
I. Title II. Title II.

Series.
PS3515.U274A6 1990 90-50179
811.52dc20 Display typography by Stephanie Bart-Horvath v3.1 To my cousin, Flora

So long, So far away Is Africa. Not even memories alive Save those that history books create, Save those that songs Beat back into the blood Beat out of blood with words sad-sung In strange un-Negro tongue So long, So far away Is Africa. Subdued and time-lost Are the drumsand yet Through some vast mist of race There comes this song I do not understand, This song of atavistic land, Of bitter yearnings lost Without a place So long, So far away Is Africas Dark face. Ive known rivers: Ive known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and Ive seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. Ive known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Aunt Sue has a head full of stories. Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.

Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories. Summer nights on the front porch Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom And tells him stories. Black slaves Working in the hot sun, And black slaves Walking in the dewy night, And black slaves Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river Mingle themselves softly In the flow of old Aunt Sues voice, Mingle themselves softly In the dark shadows that cross and recross Aunt Sues stories. And the dark-faced child, listening, Knows that Aunt Sues stories are real stories. He knows that Aunt Sue never got her stories Out of any book at all, But that they came Right out of her own life.

The low beating of the tom-toms, The slow beating of the tom-toms, Low slow Slow low Stirs your blood. The low beating of the tom-toms, The slow beating of the tom-toms, Low slow Slow low Stirs your blood.

Dance! A night-veiled girl Whirls softly into a Circle of light. Whirls softly slowly, Like a wisp of smoke around the fire And the tom-toms beat, And the tom-toms beat, And the low beating of the tom-toms Stirs your blood.

I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa. Ive been a slave: Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean. I brushed the boots of Washington. Ive been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose.

I made mortar for the Woolworth Building. Ive been a singer: All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime. Ive been a victim: The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. They lynch me still in Mississippi.

I am the American heartbreak Rock on which Freedom Stumps its toe The great mistake That Jamestown Made long ago. Perhaps You will remember John Brown. Perhaps You will remember John Brown.

John Brown Who took his gun, Took twenty-one companions White and black, Went to shoot your way to freedom Where two rivers meet And the hills of the North And the hills of the South Look slow at one another And died For your sake. Now that you are Many years free, And the echo of the Civil War Has passed away, And Brown himself Has long been tried at law, Hanged by the neck, And buried in the ground Since Harpers Ferry Is alive with ghosts today, Immortal raiders Come again to town Perhaps You will recall John Brown.

It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream.

Rose slowly, slowly, Dimming, Hiding, The light of my dream. Rose until it touched the sky The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me.

Only the thick wall. Only the shadow. My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!

The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done.

Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me That is my dream! To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! Whirl! Whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening A tall, slim tree Night coming tenderly Black like me.

At the feet o Jesus, Sorrow like a sea. Lordy, let yo mercy Come driftin down on me. At the feet o Jesus At yo feet I stand. I ask you this: Which way to go? I ask you this: Which sin to bear? Which crown to put Upon my hair? I do not know, Lord God, I do not know. Listen to yo prophets, Little Jesus! Listen to yo saints! Fire, Fire, Lord! Fire gonna burn ma soul! I aint been good, I aint been clean I been stinkin, low-down, mean. Listen to yo prophets, Little Jesus! Listen to yo saints! Fire, Fire, Lord! Fire gonna burn ma soul! I aint been good, I aint been clean I been stinkin, low-down, mean.

Fire, Fire, Lord! Fire gonna burn ma soul! Tell me, brother, Do you believe If you wanta go to heaben Got to moan an grieve? Fire, Fire, Lord! Fire gonna burn ma soul! I been stealin, Been tellin lies, Had more women Than Pharaoh had wives. Fire, Fire, Lord! Fire gonna burn ma soul! I means Fire, Lord! Fire gonna burn ma soul!

An old Negro minister concludes his sermon in his loudest voice, having previously pointed out the sins of this world:
and now When the rumble of death Rushes down the drain Pipe of eternity, And hell breaks out Into a thousand smiles, And the devil licks his chops Preparing to feast on life, And all the little devils Get out their bibs To devour the corrupt bones Of this world Oh-ooo-oo-o! Then my friends! Oh, then! Oh, then! What will you do? You will turn back And look toward the mountains. You will turn back And grasp for a straw. You will holler,