Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/215

Rh

I build my castles in the air. How beautiful they seem to me, Standing in all their glory there, Like stars above the sea! I watch them with admiring eyes, For in them dwells life’s fondest hope: If they be swept from out the skies, In darkness I must grope. They hold life’s joys, life’s sweetest dreams; They make the weary years seem bright. As one guided by bright starbeams I struggle through the night. Sometimes from out the skies they fall, And my soul shrieks in its pain; But from the heights I hear Hope’s call, “Arise and build again.” What though life be with sorrow filled And each day brings its load of care, I’m happy still while I can build My castles in the air!

Who but will say, despite the metrical defects, this is a real poem? Another poem will show his art at a better advantage, while the pathos is of another kind, very touching pathos it is, too;

I loved you, Dear. I did not know how much, Until the silence of the Grave lay cold Between us, and your hand I could not touch, And your sweet face, oh! never more behold.