Copper Sun (Cullen)/Threnody for a Brown Girl

4119237Copper Sun — Threnody for a Brown GirlCountee Cullen

Threnody for a Brown Girl

Weep not, you who love her;What rebellious flowGrief undams shall recoverWhom the gods bid go?Sorrow rising like a wall,Bitter, blasphemous,What avails it to recallBeauty back to us?
Think not this grave shall keep her,This marriage-bed confine;Death may dig it deep and deeper;She shall climb it like a vine.Body that was quick and sentient,Dear as thought or speech,Death could not with one trenchantBlow snatch out of reach.
She is nearer than the wordWasted on her now,Nearer than the swaying birdOn its rhythmic bough.Only were our faith as muchAs a mustard seed, Aching, hungry hands might touchHer as they touch a reed.
Life who was not loth to trade herOnto death, has doneBetter than he planned, has made herWise as Solomon.Now she knows the Why and Wherefore,Troublous Whence and Whither,Why men strive and sweat, and care forBays that droop and wither.
All the stars she knows by name,End and origin thereof,Knows if love be kin to shame,If shame be less than love.What was crooked now is straight,What was rough is plain;Grief and sorrow have no weightNow to cause her pain.
Plain to her why fevered blistersMade her dark hands run,While her favored, fairer sistersNeither wrought nor spun;Clear to her the hidden reasonMen daily fret and toil, Staving death off for a seasonTill soil return to soil.
One to her are flame and frost;Silence is her singing lark;We alone are children, lost,Crying in the dark.Varied feature now, and form,Change has bred upon her;Crush no bug nor nauseous wormLest you tread upon her.
Pluck no flower lest she scream;Bruise no slender reed,Lest it prove more than it seem,Lest she groan and bleed.More than ever trust your brother,Read him golden, pure;It may be she finds no otherHouse so safe and sure.
Set no poet carvingRhymes to make her laugh;Only live hearts starvingNeed an epitaph.Lay upon her no white stoneFrom a foreign quarry; Earth and sky be these aloneHer obituary.
Swift as startled fawn or swallow,Silence all her sound,She has fled; we cannot followFurther than this mound.We who take the beaten trackTrying to appeaseHearts near breaking with their lack,We need elegies.