Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/155

Rh imagery. Add thereto craftsmanship acquired in the best traditions of English poetry and you have Hill the poet.

The merit of his book cannot be shown by lines and stanzas. As ever with true art, the merit lies in the whole effect of complete poems. Still, we may here first detach from this and that poem a stanza or two, despite the wrong to art. The first and fourth stanzas of the title-poem will indicate Mr. Hill’s technique and philosophy:

I have a song that few will sing In honor of all suffering, A song to which my heart can bring The homage of believing— A song the heavy-laden hears Above the clamor of his fears, While still he walks with blinding tears, And drains the cup of grieving.

So long as life is steeped in wrong, And nations cry: “How long, how long!” I look not to the wise and strong For peace and self-possession; But right will rise, and mercy shine, And justice lift her conquering sign Where lowly people starve and pine Beneath a world oppression.

The character and temper of the Negro in those gentler aspects which make such an appeal to the heart are revealed in the following sonnet: