Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/173

Rh unwritable tragedy of that borderland race which knows not where it belongs in the world, a truly homeless race in soul. A sadder book could hardly be.

Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and received her academic education in Atlanta University and a musical education at Oberlin. She now lives in Washington, D. C. She is at the beginning of her career as an author. Two other books of lyrics, under the titles of An Autumn Love Cycle, and Bronze, she has in preparation for the press at this time. Some of their contents have already appeared in magazines. These two new volumes will make an advance in power and in richness of content beyond The Heart of a Woman. They will also provide the key to the tragic mystery concealed in that book. A poem that is to appear in Bronze will be given in a later chapter. I will here give another. Both have already been published in magazines.

One drop of midnight in the dawn of life’s pulsating stream Marks her an alien from her kind, a shade amid its gleam. Forevermore her step she bends, insular, strange, apart— And none can read the riddle of her strangely warring heart.