Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/83

Rh So dry your wet pillow and lift your bowed head And show to the world that hope is not dead! Be patient! Wait! See what yet may befall, Out of the hell and the hard of it all. —Ethyl Lewis.

But in dark days the Negro has ever had refuges and sources of strength for the want of which other races have been crushed. One of these refuges for them is the benignant breast of nature—the deep peace of the woods and the hills, the quiet soothing of pleasant-running water, the benediction of bright skies. A rarely-gifted woman, Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, singing her own consolation, with a pathos that pierces the heart, has sung for thousands of the women of her race else dumb alike in grief and in joy, and in mingled grief and joy:

I rest me deep within the wood, Drawn by its silent call; Far from the throbbing crowd of men On nature’s breast I fall. My couch is sweet with blossoms fair, A bed of fragrant dreams, And soft upon my ear there falls The lullaby of streams. The tumult of my heart is stilled, Within this sheltered spot, Deep in the bosom of the wood, Forgetting, and—forgot!