Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/227

Rh Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb suffering. Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing! ''Ah! Christ of all the Pities!'' Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words! Thou art still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul’s Soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.

But whisper—speak—call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path!

Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and without, the liar. Whither? To death? ''Amen! Welcome, dark sleep!'' Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must,—and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful shape. Selah! In yonder East trembles a star. Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord! Thy Will, O Lord, be done! Kyrie Eleison! Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words. We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord! We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of women and little children. We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!