Langston HughesClassical Poet by Andrena Zawinski
THE WEARY BLUESDroning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play. Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway . . . To the tune o' those Weary Blues. With his ebony hands on each ivory key He made that poor piano moan with melody. O Blues! Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. Sweet Blues! Coming from a black man's soul. O Blues! In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-- "Ain't got nobody in all this world, Ain't got nobody but ma self. I's gwine to quit ma frownin' And put ma troubles on the shelf."Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. He played a few chords then he sang some more-- "I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues And can't be satisfied-- I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died." And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.Langston Hughes' first major publication, however, was five years earlier when at nineteen The Crisis, (edited by W.E.B. Du Bois and to whom he was introduced by his grandmother), published "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Recent publication of that piece, which he actually wrote crossing the Mississippi River traveling south to visit his father in Mexico, became promotional material for the 1996 Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey. He is honored still as he should be.
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERSI'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. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.Politically astute and artistically sensitive, Hughes poems about America stand as documents of injustice and aspirations toward true democratic justice. They pulse across the pages of textbooks in America's classrooms today in many of the very cities where a young Hughes took his meager beginnings and developed rich inspirations that grappled with the defeats created by bigotry and hope for liberty:I, TOO, SING AMERICAI, 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 be 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.LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAINLet America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.(America never was America to me.)Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.(It never was America to me.)O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free."The free?Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay-- Except the dream that's almost dead today.O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!Langston Hughes lived a rich literary life from the time when his grandmother filled his head early on with stories of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and took him to hear Booker T. Washington speak, until he died a prolific writer at 67 in 1967 in a New York hospital. Langston Hughes leaves behind a legacy of lessons for black and white alike, ones alive that cry and dream and sing, as they should and as they will.POET TO BIGOTI have done so little For you, And you have done so little For me, That we have good reason Never to agree.I, however, Have such meagre Power, Clutching at a Moment, While you control An hour.But your hour is A stone.My Moment is A flower.DREAM VARIATIONSTo fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me-- That is my dream!To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! Whirl! Whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening . . . A tall, slim tree . . . Night coming tenderly Black like me.Poetry by Langston Hughes: The Weary Blues, 1926 Fine Clothes to the Jew, 1927 Dear Lovely Death, 1931 The Dream Keeper, (for children, 1932) Scottsboro Limited, (play and poems, 1932) Shakespeare in Harlem, 1942 Freedom's Plow, 1943 Fields of Wonder, 1947 One Way Ticket, 1949 Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951 Selected Poems, 1959 Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz, 1961 Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1994
