Page:The book of American negro poetry.djvu/239

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Full many lift and sing Their sweet imagining; Not yet the Lyric Seer, The one bard of the throng, With highest gift of song, Breaks on our sentient ear.

Not yet the gifted child, With notes enraptured, wild, That storm and throng the heart, To make his rage our own, Our hearts his lyric throne; Hard won by cosmic art.

I hear the sad refrain, Of slavery's sorrow-strain; The broken half-lispt speech Of freedom's twilit hour; The greater growing reach Of larger latent power.

Here and there a growing note Swells from a conscious throat; Thrilled with a message fraught The pregnant hour is near; We wait our Lyric Seer, By whom our wills are caught.