FENTON JOHNSON
Reading edition
“I came into the world May 7, 1888. No notice was taken of the event save in immediate circles. I presume the world was too busy or preoccupied to note it. It happened in Chicago. I went to school and also college. My scholastic record never attained me any notoriety.
Taught school one year and repented. Having scribbled since the age of nine, had some plays produced on the stage of the old Pekin Theatre, Chicago, at the time I was nineteen. When I was twenty-four my first volume A Little Dreaming was published. Since then Visions of the Dusk (1915) and Songs of the Soil (1916) represent my own collections of my work. Also published a volume of short stories Tales of Darkest America and a group of essays on American politics For the Highest Good. Work in poetry appears in the following anthologies: The New Poetry (Monroe and Henderson), Victory (Braithwaite), Others (Kreymborg), The Chicago Anthology (Blanden), Anthology of Magazine Verse (Braithwaite), Poetry by American Negroes (White and Jackson), Negro Poets and their Poetry (Kerlin), Poets of America (Wood), Book of American Negro Poetry (J. W. Johnson), Today’s Poetry (Crawford and O’Neil) and others.
Edited two or three magazines and published one or two of them myself.
My complete autobiography I promise to the world when I am able to realize that I have done something.”
WHEN I DIE
When I die my song shall be Crooning of the summer breeze; When I die my shroud shall be Leaves plucked from the maple trees; On a couch as green as moss And a bed as soft as down, I shall sleep and dream my dream Of a poet’s laurel crown. When I die my star shall drop Singing like a nightingale; When I die my soul shall rise Where the lyre-strings never fail; In the rose my blood shall lie, In the violet the smile, And the moonbeams thousand strong Past my grave each night shall file.
PUCK GOES TO COURT
I went to court last night, Before me firefly light; And there was Lady Mab, On cheek a cunning dab Of rouge the sun sent down, King Oberon with crown Of gold eyed daisy buds Among potato spuds Was dancing roundelay With Lady Chloe and May. I hid among the flowers And spent the wee young hours In mixing up the punch; For I was on a hunch That sober men are dull And fairy dust will lull To rest the plodding mind Worn down by life’s thick grind. The nobles drank the brew And called it sweetest dew; But when I left they lay Stunned by the light of day And Oberon had writ Decree that I must flit A hundred leagues from court. (Alas! Where is there sport?)
THE MARATHON RUNNER
If I have run my course and seek the pearls My Psyche fain would drink at Mermelon And rest content in wine and nectar cup Who knows but that the gods have found me whole And in their stewardship of man would bless The sweating lover fickle man once knew? I know that I might pull the tendon bands That hold my soul together—ay, might bend Each nerve and muscle spirit fain would keep— That I might hear the maddening cheers of men Who when the morrow dawns forget the games And cast instead the dice in market place. But I have found sweeter peace than fame; And in the evening dwell on heights divine, Betwixt my lips a rose from Cupid’s hands, Upon my brow the laurel Belvidere Entwines from tree beside the throne of Zeus And flowing from my speech Athene’s words Dipped long in wisdom’s fount to heal the soul.