Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/75

Rh Another singer, coming out of the Black Belt of the lower South, records the daily and life-long history of his people in these lines:

A day of joy, a week of pain, A sunny day, a week of rain; A clay of peace, a year of strife; But cling to Him, it’s all through life. An hour of joy, a day of fears, An hour of smiles, a day of tears; An hour of gain, a day of strife, Press on, press on, it’s all through life. —Waverley Turner Carmichael.

In the poetry which the Negro is producing to-day there is a challenge to the world. His race has been deeply stirred by recent events; its reaction has been mighty. The challenge, spoken by one, but for the race, the inarticulate millions as well as the cultured few, comes thus:

How would you have us—as we are, Or sinking ’neath the load we bear? Our eyes fixed forward on a star? Or gazing empty at despair?