Death and the mysteries of life, the pain and the grief that flesh and soul are heirs to, the eternal problems that address themselves to all generations and races, produce in the soul of the Negro the same reactions as of old they produced in the soul of David or of Homer, or as, in our own day, in the soul of a Wordsworth or a Shelley. Of this we have a glimpse in the following lyric, from Walter Everette Hawkins:
IN SPITE OF DEATH
Curses come in every sound,
And wars spread gloom and woe around.
The cannon belch forth death and doom,
But still the lilies wave and bloom.
Man fills the earth with grief and wrong,
But cannot hush the bluebird’s song.
My stars are dancing on the sea,
The waves fling kisses up at me.
Each night my gladsome moon doth rise;
A rainbow spans my evening skies;
The robin’s song is full and fine;
And roses lift their lips to mine.
The jonquils ope their petals sweet,
The poppies dance around my feet;
In spite of winter and of death,
The Spring is in the zephyr’s breath.
This poetry but re-affirms the essential identity of human nature under black and white skins. But it will remind most of the white race of how ignorant they have been of that black race next
