Page:Darkwater (Du Bois 1920).djvu/202

188 Black were the men,

Hard-haired and silent-slow,

Moving as shadows,

Bending with face of fear to earthward;

And women there were none.

"Woman, woman, woman!"

I cried in mounting terror.

"Woman and Child!"

And the cry sang back

Through heaven, with the

Whirring of almighty wings.

Wings, wings, endless wings,—

Heaven and earth are wings;

Wings that flutter, furl, and fold,

Always folding and unfolding,

Ever folding yet again;

Wings, veiling some vast

And veiléd face,

In blazing blackness,

Behind the folding and unfolding,

The rolling and unrolling of

Almighty wings!

I saw the black men huddle,

Fumed in fear, falling face downward;

Vainly I clutched and clawed,

Dumbly they cringed and cowered,

Moaning in mournful monotone:

O Freedom, O Freedom,

O Freedom over me;

Before I'll be a slave,

I'll be buried in my grave,

And go home to my God,

And be free.