The Book of American Negro Poetry

Sculptured Worship

The zones of warmth around his heart,

No alien airs had crossed;

But he awoke one morn to feel

The magic numbness of autumnal frost.

His thoughts were a loose skein of threads,

And tangled emotions, vague and dim;

And sacrificing what he loved

He lost the dearest part of him.

In sculptured worship now he lives,

His one desire a prisoned ache;

If he can never melt again

His very heart will break.

Laughing It Out

He had a whim and laughed it out

Upon the exit of a chance;

He floundered in a sea of doubt-

If life was real-or just romance.

Sometimes upon his brow would come

A little pucker of defiance;

He totalled in a word the sum

Of all man made of facts and science.

And then a hearty laugh would break,

A reassuring shrug of shoulder;

And we would from his fancy take

A faith in death which made life bolder.

Exit

No, his exit by the gate

Will not leave the wind ajar;

He will go when it is late

With a misty star.

One will call, he cannot see;

One will call, he will not hear;

He will take no company

Nor a hope or fear.

We shall smile who loved him so-

They who gave him hate will weep;

But for us the winds will blow

Pulsing through his sleep.