Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/232

210 to Pilgrim’s Progress. The author calls it a sermonette, and it is one of three contained in a very small book entitled The Enchanted Valley. But the author is no preacher. He is a ship-yard worker in Philadelphia—I almost said a “common” worker. But such workmen were never common, anywhere, at any time. Charles Conner wears the garb and wields the tools of a common workman, but he has most uncommon visions. He is a seer and a philosopher. He has informed me that there is American Indian blood in his veins. From the mystical and philosophical character of his writings, both prose and verse, I should have expected an East Indian strain. Twice have I visited his humble habitation, and each time it was a visit to the Enchanted Valley.

At the dawning of a day, in a deep valley, a man awoke.