Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/87

Rh The angels shouted all the night Their “Glory, Hallelujah” shout; Old Gabriel threw his trumpet down To hear the songs of Israel, On mighty David’s harp, As the Jordan rolled away. When death has closed my weary eyes I’ll play again on David’s harp The last great song in life’s brief book; And all you children born of God Can stop awhile and hear me play, As the Jordan rolls away.

No less certain it is that many a reader will demand something more crude, more obscure, more mystical. Something, perhaps, at once ridiculous and wise—with big and strangely compounded words, ludicrously applied, yet striving at the expression of some peculiarly African idea. Of such verse I can produce no example. The nearest I can come to meeting such impossible demand is by submitting the following from William Edgar Bailey:

Mr. Self at the bat! Well, we’re all at the bat— For one thing or other, For this or for that. The ball may be hurled, in the form of this plea: “Will you please help the poor?