A little while, Too brief at most, And even my smile Will be a ghost. A little space, A Finger’s crook, And who shall trace The path I took? Who shall declare My whereabouts; Say if in the air My being shouts Along light ways, Or if in the sea, Or deep earth stays The germ of me? Ah, none knows, none, Save (but too well) The Cryptic One Who will not tell. This is my hour To wax and climb, Flaunt a red flower In the face of time. And only an hour Time gives, then snap Goes the flower, And dried is the sap. Juice of the first Grapes of my vine, I proffer your thirst My own heart’s wine. Here of my growing A red rose sways, Seed of my sowing, And work of my days. (I run, but time’s Abreast with me; I sing, but he climbs With my highest C.) Drink while my blood Colors the wine, Reach while the bud Is still on the vine.... Then ... When the hawks of death Tear at my throat Till song and breath Ebb note by note, Turn to this book Of the mellow word For a singing look At the stricken bird. Say, “This is the way He chirped and sung, In the sweet heyday When his heart was young. Though his throat is bare, By death defiled, Song labored there And bore a child.” When the dreadful Ax Rives me apart, When the sharp wedge cracks My arid heart, Turn to this book Of the singing me For a springtime look At the wintry tree. Say, “Thus it was weighed With flower and fruit, Ere the Ax was laid Unto its root. Though the blows fall free On a gnarled trunk now, Once he was a tree With a blossomy bough.” _Color_ _Yet Do I Marvel_ I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing! _A Song of Praise_ (_For one who praised his lady’s being fair._) You have not heard my love’s dark throat, Slow-fluting like a reed, Release the perfect golden note She caged there for my need. Her walk is like the replica Of some barbaric dance Wherein the soul of Africa Is winged with arrogance. And yet so light she steps across The ways her sure feet pass, She does not dent the smoothest moss Or bend the thinnest grass. My love is dark as yours is fair, Yet lovelier I hold her Than listless maids with pallid hair, And blood that’s thin and colder.