Page:Darkwater (Du Bois 1920).djvu/201



I am dead;

Yet somehow, somewhere,

In Time's weird contradiction, I

May tell of that dread deed, wherewith

I brought to Children of the Moon

Freedom and vast salvation.

I was a woman born,

And trod the streaming street,

That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills,

Through caves and canons limned in light,

Down to the twisting sea.

That night of nights,

I stood alone and at the End,

Until the sudden highway to the moon,

Golden in splendor,

Became too real to doubt.

Dimly I set foot upon the air,

I fled, I flew, through thrills of light,

With all about, above, below, the whirring

Of almighty wings.

I found a twilight land,

Where, hardly hid, the sun

Sent softly-saddened rays of

Red and brown to burn the iron soil

And bathe the snow-white peaks

In mighty splendor. Rh