Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/124

102 Have been robbed of heritage; I am phantom derelict, Drifting on a flaming sea. Everywhere I go, I strive, Vainly strive for greater things; Daisies die, and stars are cold, And canary never sings; Where I go they mock my name, Never grant me liberty, Chance to breathe and chance to do.

The Vision of Lazarus, contained in A Little Dreaming, is a blank-verse poem of about three-hundred lines, original, well-sustained, imaginative, and deeply impressive.

In one of the newer methods of verse, and yet with a splendid suggestion of the old Spirituals, I will take from a recent magazine a poem by Mr. Johnson that will show how the vision of his people is turned toward the future, from the welter of struggling forces in the World War:

From a vision red with war I awoke and saw the Prince of Peace hovering over No Man’s Land. Loud the whistles blew and thunder of cannon was drowned by the happy shouting of the people. From the Sinai that faces Armageddon I heard this chant from the throats of white-robed angels: Blow your trumpets, little children! From the East and from the West,