Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/108

86 And morn may gild, through shimmering leaves,

Only the swallow-twittering eaves.

What art may house or gold prolong

A dream far lovelier than a song?

The lilting witchery, the unrest

Of winged dreams, is in our breast;

But ever dear Fulfilment's eyes

Gaze otherward. The long-sought prize,

My lute, must to the gods belong.

The dream is lovelier than the song.

Cherokee-Indian, Scotch-Irish, French, and African blood in James David Corrothers, the author of this poem, makes his complexion, he supposed, “about that of the original man.” The reader has already had, at the beginning of the discussion of Dunbar, a sonnet from this poet. The sonnet, the above poem, and the others given here were published in The Century Magazine. Not unworthy of The Century’s standards, the reader must say.

James David Corrothers was born in Michigan, July 2, 1869. His mother in giving him life