Of love and joy and wine and song,
And not this land where joy is wrong.
Oh, sweet, away!
Ah, my beloved one, away!
LAMENT FOR DARK PEOPLES
I was a red man one time,
But the white men came.
I was a black man, too,
But the white men came.
They drove me out of the forest.
They took me away from the jungles.
I lost my trees.
I lost my silver moons.
Now they’ve caged me
In the circus of civilization.
Now I herd with the many—
Caged in the circus of civilization.
AFRAID
We cry among the skyscrapers
As our ancestors
Cried among the palms in Africa
Because we are alone,
It is night,
And we’re afraid.
POEM
For the portrait of an African boy after the manner of
Gauguin
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.
SUMMER NIGHT
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.
I toss
Without rest in the darkness,
Weary as the tired night,
My soul
Empty as the silence,
Empty with a vague,
Aching emptiness,
Desiring,
Needing someone,
Something.
I toss without rest
In the darkness
Until the new dawn,
Wan and pale,
Descends like a white mist
Into the court-yard.
DISILLUSION
I would be simple again,
Simple and clean
Like the earth,
Like the rain,
Nor ever know,
Dark Harlem,
The wild laughter
Of your mirth
Nor the salt tears
Of your pain.
Be kind to me,
Oh, great dark city.
Let me forget.
I will not come
To you again.
DANSE AFRICAINE
The low beating of the tom-toms,
The slow beating of the tom-toms,
Low … slow
Slow … low—
Stirs your blood.
Dance!
A night-veiled girl
Whirls softly into a
Circle of light.
Whirls softly … slowly,
Like a wisp of smoke around the fire—
And the tom-toms beat,
And the tom-toms beat,
And the low beating of the tom-toms
Stirs your blood.
THE WHITE ONES
I do not hate you,
For your faces are beautiful, too.
I do not hate you,
Your faces are whirling lights of loveliness and splendor, too.
Yet why do you torture me,
O, white strong ones,
Why do you torture me?
MOTHER TO SON
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.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
POEM
We have tomorrow
Bright before us
Like a flame.
Yesterday
A night-gone thing,
A sun-down name.
And dawn-today
Broad arch above the road we came.
EPILOGUE
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.
Tomorrow,
I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,—
I, too, am America.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. After graduation from high school, he spent a year in Mexico with his father, then a year studying at Columbia University. His first poem in a nationally known magazine was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which appeared in Crisis in 1921. In 1925, he was awarded the First Prize for Poetry from the magazine Opportunity for “The Weary Blues,” which gave its title to his first book of poems, published in 1926. Hughes received his B.A. from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1929. In 1943, he was awarded an honorary Litt.D. by his alma mater; during his lifetime, he was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1935), a Rosenwald Fellowship (1940), and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Grant (1947). From 1926 until his death in 1967, Hughes devoted his time to writing and lecturing. He wrote poetry, short stories, autobiography, song lyrics, essays, humor, and plays. A cross-section of his work was published in 1958 as The Langston Hughes Reader; a Selected Poems first appeared in 1959, and a Collected Poems in 1994. Today, his many works and his contribution to American letters continue to be cherished and celebrated around the world.
ALSO BY LANGSTON HUGHES
POETRY
The Panther and the Lash: Poems for Our Times (1967)
Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (1959)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
FICTION
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955) with Roy DeCarava (photographer)
Laughing to Keep from Crying (1952)
The Ways of White Folks (1934)
Not Without Laughter (1930)
DRAMA
Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963)
HUMOR
Simple’s Uncle Sam (1965)
The Best of Simple (1961)
Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
The First Book of Africa (1960)
The First Book of the West Indies (1956)
The First Book of Jazz (1955)
The First Book of Rhythms (1954)
The First Book of the Negroes (1952)
Pop and Fifina (1932) with Arna Bontemps
BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Famous Negro H
eroes of America (1958)
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)
Famous Negro Music Makers (1955)
Famous American Negroes (1954)
The Big Sea (1940)
ANTHOLOGY
The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers: An Anthology from 1899 to the Present (1967)
New Negro Poets: USA (1964)
An African Treasury: Articles / Essays / Stories / Poems by Black Africans (1960)
The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)
The Book of Negro Folklore (1958) with Arna Bontemps
Poetry of the Negro (1949) with Arna Bontemps
HISTORY
Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment (1967) with Milton Meltzer
Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP (1962)
A Pictorial History of the Negro in America (1956) with Milton Meltzer
TRANSLATIONS
Selected Poems by Gabriela Mistral (1957)
Cuba Libre: Poems by Nicolás Guillén (1948)
Masters of the Dew (1947) with Mercer Cook. A translation of the novel
Gouverneurs de la rosée by Jacques Roumain
The Weary Blues Page 4