Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/146

124 In the brute strength of the sword men rely, They count not Justice in reckoning things; Whom their lips worship their hearts crucify, This the oblation the votary brings. Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. Locked in death-struggle humanity’s host, Seeking revenge with the dagger and sword; This is the pride which the Pharisees boast, Man damns his brother in the name of his Lord. Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. Time dims the glare of the pomp and applause, Vainglorious monarchs and proud princes fall; Until the death of Time revokes his laws, His awful mandate shall reign over all. Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield.

A number of Mr. Hawkins’s productions reveal possibilities of beauty and effectiveness, which he had not the patience or the skill to realize. One imagines that he has never been able to bring his spirit to a submissive study of the minutiæ of metrical composition. A poet in esse—or in posse—is all that nature ever makes. And even the most free spirit must know well the traditions. Whether this iconoclast knows the Cavalier traditions of English poetry may be left to conjecture, but the following piece, illustrating Mr. Hawkins’s faults and virtues as a singer, will