Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/259

Rh sense of art set a limit.—He was born in a cabin at Chesterfield, Virginia, struggled in the usual way for the rudiments of book-knowledge, became a teacher, then a soldier. His health was wrecked in the World War. He died before his powers were matured.—Short and simple are the annals of the poet. Before one of his intenser race poems I shall give his last lyric cry, uttered but a few days before his lingering death:

My fallen star has spent its light And left but memory to me; My day of dream has kissed the night Farewell, its sun no more I see; My summer bloomed for winter’s frost: Alas, I’ve lived and loved and lost! What matters it to-day should earth Lay on my head a gold-bright crown Lit with the gems of royal worth Befitting well a king’s renown?— My lonely soul is trouble-tossed, For I have lived and loved and lost.