Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/163

Rh Well, there's the bell! Goodbye, goodbye, And be good children, don't forget.”— Well, thank the Lord they're gone, but I Can hear their joyous laughter yet. ’Tis now the time of silver moon, Of swelling bud and fancies free As western winds, but then, ah me! May cannot come too soon!

Though the moral motive is rarely consistent with the artistic, yet in the next poem of Miss Jessye's I shall give there is a perfect reconciliation. Original no doubt is the idea of this poem, but Sappho, it seems to me, as one of her fragments bears witness, had meditated upon the very same idea twenty-five centuries ago.

O dainty bud, I hold thee in my hand— A castaway, a dead, a lifeless thing, A few days since I saw thee, wet with dew, A bud of promise to thy parent cling, Now thou art crushed yet lovely as before, The adverse winds but waft thy fragrance more. How small, how frail! I tread thee underfoot And crush thy petals in the reeking ground: Perchance some one in pity for thy state Will pick thee up in reverence profound— Lo, thou art pure with virtue more intense, Thy perfume grows from earthly detriments.