LANGSTON HUGHES
Reading edition
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on the first of February, 1902. His mother was a school teacher, his father a lawyer. During most of his childhood he lived with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas, where he went to school. This old lady, Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston, was the last surviving widow of John Brown’s Raid, her first husband having been one of the five colored men to die so gloriously at Harper’s Ferry. She had then married Charles Langston, brother of the Negro senator, John M. Langston, and in the seventies they came to Kansas where the mother of the poet was born.
When Langston Hughes was thirteen this grandmother died and the boy went to live with his mother in Lincoln, Illinois. A year later they moved to Cleveland where he attended and was graduated from the Central High School. Then followed fifteen months in Mexico where his father had been located for some years. Here the young man learned Spanish, taught English, and attended bull-fights. Here, too, he wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” his first poem to be published in the magazines.
In 1921 he went to New York for a year at Columbia University. A break with his father followed and he secured work for the summer on a truck farm on Staten Island. Then for almost two years he travelled as a member of the crew of freight steamers voyaging to the West Coast of Africa and Northern Europe. In February, 1924, he went to Paris. When he arrived he had seven dollars in his pockets; so he soon found a job as doorman in a Montmartre cabaret. Later he became second cook and pan-cake maker at the Grand Duc, a Negro night club where Buddy Gilmore sometimes played and Florence sang. That summer he went to Italy, and September found him stranded in Genoa. He worked his way back to New York on a tramp steamer, painting and scrubbing decks.
A year in Washington followed where he worked in the office of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and later as a bus boy at the Wardman Park Hotel. There Vachel Lindsay read some of his poems and he was discovered by the newspapers. Then his first book, The Weary Blues, appeared. He has now resumed his formal education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, which he says is a place of beauty and the ideal college for a poet. His second book of poems, Fine Clothes for the Jew, is a study in racial rhythms.
Lincoln University April 13, 1927
I, TOO[16]
I, 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 sit 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.
PRAYER[17]
I ask you this: Which way to go? I ask you this: Which sin to bear? Which crown to put Upon my hair? I do not know, Lord God, I do not know.
SONG FOR A DARK GIRL[18]
Way down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover To a cross roads tree. Way down South in Dixie (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus What was the use of prayer. Way down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) Love is a naked shadow On a gnarled and naked tree.
HOMESICK BLUES[19]
De railroad bridge’s A sad song in de air. De railroad bridge’s A sad song in de air. Ever time de trains pass I wants to go somewhere. I went down to de station. Ma heart was in ma mouth. Went down to de station. Heart was in ma mouth. Lookin’ for a box car To roll me to de South. Homesick blues, Lawd, ’S a terrible thing to have. Homesick blues is A terrible thing to have. To keep from cryin’ I opens ma mouth an’ laughs.
FANTASY IN PURPLE[20]
Beat the drums of tragedy for me. Beat the drums of tragedy and death. And let the choir sing a stormy song To drown the rattle of my dying breath. Beat the drums of tragedy for me, And let the white violins whir thin and slow, But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun To go with me to the darkness where I go.
DREAM VARIATION[21]
To 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.
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS[22]
I’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.
POEM[23]
The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
SUICIDE’S NOTE[24]
The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.
MOTHER TO SON[25]
Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I’s been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now— For I’s still goin’, honey, I’s still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
A HOUSE IN TAOS
Rain Thunder of the Rain God: And we three Smitten by beauty. Thunder of the Rain God: And we three Weary, weary. Thunder of the Rain God: And you, she and I Waiting for nothingness. Do you understand the stillness Of this house in Taos Under the thunder of the Rain God? Sun That there should be a barren garden About his house in Taos Is not so strange, But that there should be three barren hearts In this one house in Taos,— Who carries ugly things to show the sun? Moon Did you ask for the beaten brass of the moon? We can buy lovely things with money, You, she and I, Yet you seek, As though you could keep, This unbought loveliness of moon. Wind Touch our bodies, wind. Our bodies are separate, individual things. Touch our bodies, wind, But blow quickly Through the red, white, yellow skins Of our bodies To the terrible snarl, Not mine, Not yours, Not hers, But all one snarl of souls. Blow quickly, wind, Before we run back into the windlessness,— With our bodies,— Into the windlessness Of our house in Taos.