Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/134

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I do not care for sleep, I’ll wait awhile For Love to come out of the darkness, wait For laughter, gifted with the frequent fate Of dusk-lit hope, to touch me with the smile Of moon and star and joy of that last mile Before I reach the sea. The ships are late And mayhap laden with the precious freight Dawn brings from Life’s eternal summer isle. And should I find the sweeter fruits of dream— The oranges of love and mating song— I’ll laugh so true the morn will gayly seem Endless and ships full laden with a throng Of beauty, dreams and loves will come to me Out of the surge of yonder silver sea.

I stood with dear friend Death awhile last night, Out where the stars shone with a lustre true In sacred dreams and all the old and new Of love and life winged in a silver flight Off to the sea of peace that waits where white, Pale silences melt in the tranquil blue Of skies so tender beauty doth imbue The time with holiness and singing light. My heart is Life, my soul, O Death, is thine! Is thine to kiss with yearning life again, Is thine to strengthen and to sweet incline To peace and mellowed dream of joy’s refrain. I ’ll stand with Death again to-night, I think, Out where the stars reveal life’s deeper brink.