Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/113

Rh plays and poems. The English libretto of Goyescas was made by him for the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1915. He is also one of the ablest editorial writers in the country. In the Public Ledger’s contest of 1916 he won the third prize. His editorials are widely syndicated in the Negro weekly press. Poems of his have appeared in The Century, The Crisis, and The Independent.

Professor Brander Matthews in his Introduction to Fifty Years and Other Poems speaks of “the superb and soaring stanzas” of the title-poem and describes it as “a poem sonorous in its diction, vigorous in its workmanship, elevated in its imagination, and sincere in its emotion.” Doubtless this will seem like the language of exaggeration. The sceptic, however, must withhold judgment until he has read the poem, too long for presentation here. Mr. Johnson’s poetical qualities can be represented in this place only by briefer though inferior productions. A poem of