_And also herein may be discerned that nostalgia for color and warmth and beauty which explains this boy’s nomadic instincts._ _“We should have a land of sun, Of gorgeous sun, And a land of fragrant water Where the twilight Is a soft bandanna handkerchief Of rose and gold, And not this land where life is cold,”_ _he sings. Again, he tells his 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.”_ _More of this wistful longing may be discovered in the poems entitled_ The South _and_ As I Grew Older. _His verses, however, are by no means limited to an exclusive mood; he writes caressingly of little black prostitutes in Harlem; his cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race in_ Cross _and_ The Jester; _he sighs, in one of the most successful of his fragile poems, over the loss of a loved friend. Always, however, his stanzas are subjective, personal. They are the (I had almost said informal, for they have a highly deceptive air of spontaneous improvisation) expression of an essentially sensitive and subtly illusive nature, seeking always to break through the veil that obscures for him, at least in some degree, the ultimate needs of that nature._ _To the Negro race in America, since the day when Phillis Wheatley indited lines to General George Washington and other aristocratic figures (for Phillis Wheatley never sang “My way’s cloudy,” or “By an by, I’m goin to lay down dis heavy load”) there have been born many poets. Paul Laurence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Countée Cullen, are a few of the more memorable names. Not the least of these names, I think, is that of Langston Hughes, and perhaps his adventures and personality offer the promise of as rich a fulfillment as has been the lot of any of the others._ Carl Van Vechten. _New York._ _August 3, 1925._ CONTENTS Introducing Langston Hughes to the reader ♦9 _by Carl Van Vechten_ Proem ♠19 THE WEARY BLUES