Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/106

84 The band of Gideon roam the sky

And view the earth with baleful eye;

In holy wrath they scourge the land

With earthquake, storm, and burning brand.

Each black cloud

Is a fiery steed.

And they cry aloud

With each strong deed,

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

The lightnings flash and the thunders roll,

And “Lord have mercy on my soul,”

Cry men as they fall on the stricken sod,

In agony searching for their God.

Each black cloud

Is a fiery steed.

And they cry aloud

With each strong deed,

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

And men repent and then forget

That heavenly wrath they ever met.

The band of Gideon yet will come

And strike their tongues of blasphemy dumb.

Each black cloud

Is a fiery steed.

And they cry aloud

With each strong deed,

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

The reader, I predict, will be drawn again and again to this mysterious poem. It will continue to haunt his imagination, and tease his thought. The stamp of the African mind is upon it. Closely