Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/105

Rh The lyrical faculty is evinced by such poems. But others singers of our day might have produced them—singers of the white race. Not so, I think, of "The Band of Gideon." Upon that poem is the stamp, not of genius only, but of Negro genius. In it is re-incarnated, by a cultured, creative mind, the very spirit of the old plantation songs and sermons. The reader who has in his possession that background will respond to the unique and powerful appeal of this poem.

THE BAND OF GIDEON

The band of Gideon roam the sky,

The howling wind is their war-cry,

The thunder's roll is their trumpet's peal

And the lightning's flash their vengeful steel.

Each black cloud

Is a fiery steed.

And they cry aloud

With each strong deed,

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

And men below rear temples high

And mock their God with reasons why,

And live in arrogance, sin, and shame,

And rape their souls for the world's good name.

Each black cloud

Is a fiery steed.

And they cry aloud

With each strong deed,

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”