Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/140

118 In the heart of the world is the call for love: White heart—Red—Yellow—and Black. Each face turns to Bethlehem’s bright star above, Though wolves of self howl at each back. The whole earth is lifting its voice in a prayer That nations may learn to endure, Without killing and maiming, but doing what’s fair With a soul that is noble and pure. Love in weak peoples; love in the strong; Love that will banish all hatred and wrong. In the heart of the world is the call of God; East—West—and North—and South. Stirring, deep-yearning, breast-heaving call for God A-tremble behind each mouth. The heart’s ill of torments that rend men’s souls. Skyward lift all faiths and hopes; Across all the oceans the evidence rolls, Refreshing all life’s arid slopes. God in the highborn; God in the low; ''God calls us, world-brothers. Hark ye! and know.''

From Poems of the Four Seas I will take a piece that gives the Negro background for the yearning expressed in the foregoing poem:

They bind his feet; they thong his hands With hard hemp rope and iron bands. They scourge his back in ghoulish glee; And bleed his flesh;—men, mark ye—free.