Poetry quotes

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.

Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories. Summer nights on the front porch Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced child to her bosom And tells him stories.

I’ve been a slave: Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean.

I brushed the boots of Washington.

I’ve been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose. I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

I’ve been a worker: Under my hand the pyramids arose.

I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

I’ve been a singer: All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime.

I’ve been a singer: All the way from Africa to Georgia

I carried my sorrow songs. I made ragtime.

I’ve been a victim: The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. They lynch me now in Texas.

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare;

That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise.

Her bandage hides two festering sores That once, perhaps, were eyes.

Today like yesterday Tomorrow like today; The drip, drip, drip, Of monotony Is wearing my life away; Today like yesterday, Tomorrow like today.

Today like yesterday Tomorrow like today; The drip, drip, drip, Of monotony Is wearing my life away; Today like yesterday, Tomorrow like today.

Hold fast to dreams, my son, For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams, O boy, For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

Hold fast to dreams, O boy, For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

All the tom-toms of the jungles beat in my blood, And all the wild hot moons of the jungles shine in my soul.

I am afraid of this civilization— So hard, So strong, So cold.

We were not made For shade, For heavy shade, And narrow space of stifling air That these white things have made. We run, Oh, God, We run! We must break through these shadows, We must find the sun.

Does a jazz-band ever sob?

They say a jazz-band’s gay. Yet as the vulgar dancers whirled And the wan night wore away, One said she heard the jazz-band sob When the little dawn was grey.

The ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond and jade, Sit silently on their temple shelves While the people Are afraid. Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade,

Are only silly puppet gods That the people themselves Have made.

The gold moth did not love him So, gorgeous, she flew away. But the gray moth circled the flame Until the break of day. And then, with wings like a dead desire, She fell, fire-caught, into the fire.

Sea charm The sea’s own children Do not understand. They know But that the sea is strong Like God’s hand. They know But that sea wind is sweet Like God’s breath, And that the sea holds A wide, deep death.

Bring me all of your dreams, You dreamers.

Bring me all of your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too rough fingers Of the world.

It’s an earth song, A body song, A spring song— I have been waiting long for this spring song.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

It’s an earth song, A body song, A spring song— I have been waiting long for this spring song.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

My old man died in a fine big house. My ma died in a shack.

I wonder where I’m gonna die, Being neither white nor black?

The sounds Of the Harlem night Drop one by one into stillness. The last player-piano is closed. The last victrola ceases with the “Jazz Boy Blues.” The last crying baby sleeps And the night becomes Still as a whispering heartbeat.

Days filled with fiery sunshine

Strange hurt she knew

That made Her seek the burning sunlight Rather than the shade.

Eagle-rockin’, Daddy, eagle-rock with me. Eagle rockin’, Come an’ eagle-rock with me. Honey baby, Eagle-rockish as I kin be!

Love Is a ripe plum Growing on a purple tree.

Taste it once And the spell of its enchantment Will never let you be.

I got a job now Runnin’ an elevator In the Dennison Hotel in Jersey. Job ain’t no good though. No money around.

Jobs are just chances Like everthing else.

Maybe a little luck now, Maybe not. Maybe a good job sometimes: Step out o’ the barrel, boy. Two new suits an’ A woman to sleep with. Maybe no luck for a long time.

How still, How strangely still The water is today. It is not good For water To be so still that way.

God having a hemorrhage, Blood coughed across the sky,

Staining the dark sea red, That is sunset in the Caribbean.

Sing, O black mother!

Song is a strong thing.

Clutching at trees and clawing rocks And panting and climbing Until he reached the top A tiger in India Surmounted a cliff one day When the hunters were behind him And his lair was far away.

… Will be an hour of pain And every sun-filled cloud A cloud of rain And even the withered flowers Will lose their long-held faint perfume And you alone will be with you In that last room— Only your single selves together Facing a single doom.

Because you are to me a song I must not sing you overlong.

Because you are to me a prayer I cannot say you everywhere.

Here I sit with my belly full, No longer the rain, No longer the shadows for the Woman I love, No longer hunger.

Success is a great big beefsteak With onions on it, And I eat.

It’s because you are so young— You do not understand. But we are old As the jungle trees That bloomed forever, Old as the forgotten rivers That flowed into the earth. Surely we know what you do not know: Joy of living, Uselessness of things.

Dear lovely Death That taketh all things under wing— Never to kill— Only to change Into some other thing This suffering flesh, To make it either more or less, Yet not again the same—

Dear lovely Death, Change is thy other name.

Plant your toes in the cool swamp mud; Step and leave no track. Hurry, sweating runner! The hounds are at your back.

Desire weaves its fantasy of dreams, And all the world becomes a garden close In which we wander, you and I together, Believing in the symbol of the rose, Believing only in the heart’s bright flower— Forgetting—flowers wither in an hour.

Death is a tower To which the soul ascends To spend a meditative hour⁠— That never ends.

In ships all over the world The English comb their hair for dinner, Stand watch on the bridge, Guide by strange stars, Take on passengers, Slip up hot rivers, Nose across lagoons, Bargain for trade, Buy, sell or rob, Load oil, load fruit, Load cocoa …