Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/174

152 The stormy current of her blood beats like a mighty sea Against the man-wrought iron bars of her captivity. For refuge, succor, peace, and rest, she seeks that humble fold Whose every breath is kindliness, whose hearts are purest gold.

Not less distinctive in quality than Mrs. Johnson’s, and not less beautiful in artistry, are the brief lyrics of

Miss Angelina W. Grimké, also of the city of Washington. If hers should be called imagist poetry or no I cannot say, but I am certain that more vivid imaging of objects has not been done in verse by any contemporary. This, too, in stanzas that suggest in their perfection of form the work of the old lapidaries. Nor is there but a surface or formal beauty. There is passion, there is beauty of idea, the soul of lyric poetry is there as well as the form. I am weighing well my words in giving this praise, and I know that not