Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/115

Rh O Southland! my Southland!

O birthland! do not shirk

The toilsome task, nor respite ask,

But gird you for the work.

Remember, remember

That weakness stalks in pride;

That he is strong who helps along

The faint one at his side.

For pure lyric beauty and exquisite pathos, Wordsworthian in both respects, but no hint of imitation, the following stanzas may be set, without disadvantage to them, by the side of any in our literature:

Yet one other poem of this fine singer's I will give, selecting from not a few that press for the