Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/180

158. It is not other standards, as the novelist intimates, that we must apply, but only right standards, in view of circumstances.

I am able to give here a poem that may start in the reader's mind a fruitful train of reflections, tending toward profound ethical truth. The writer, Mrs. Anne Spencer of Lynchburg, Virginia, in all of her work that I have seen, has marked originality. Her style is independent, unconventional, and highly compressed. The poem which follows will fairly represent her work and at the same time open another avenue to the secret chambers of the Negro woman's heart:

AT THE CARNIVAL

Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving Tank,

I desire a name for you,

Nice, as a right glove fits;

For you—who amid the malodorous

Mechanics of this unlovely thing,

Are darling of spirit and form.

I know you—a glance, and what you are

Sits-by-the-fire in my heart.

My Limousine-Lady knows you, or

Why does the slant-envy of her eye mark

Your straight air and radiant inclusive smile?

Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning.

The bull-necked man knows you—this first time

His itching flesh sees form divine and vibrant health,

And thinks not of his avocation.

I came incuriously—