Page:Darkwater (Du Bois 1920).djvu/203

Rh It was as angel-music

From the dead,

And ever, as they sang,

Some wingéd thing of wings, filling all heaven,

Folding and unfolding, and folding yet again,

Tore out their blood and entrails,

'Til I screamed in utter terror;

And a silence came,—

A silence and the wailing of a babe.

Then, at last, I saw and shamed;

I knew how these dumb, dark, and dusky things

Had given blood and life,

To fend the caves of underground,

The great black caves of utter night,

Where earth lay full of mothers

And their babes.

Little children sobbing in darkness,

Little children crying in silent pain,

Little mothers rocking and groping and struggling,

Digging and delving and groveling,

Amid the dying-dead and dead-in-life

And drip and dripping of warm, wet blood,

Far, far beneath the wings,—

The folding and unfolding of almighty wings.

I bent with tears and pitying hands,

Above these dusky star-eyed children,—

Crinkly-haired, with sweet-sad baby voices,

Pleading low for light and love and living—

And I crooned:

Little children weeping there,

God shall find your faces fair;

Guerdon for your deep distress,

He shall send His tenderness;