The Weary Blues

“Bring me all of your dreams, You dreamers. Bring me all of your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too rough fingers Of the world.””

— Langston Hughes

“Now, In June, When the night is a vast softness Filled with blue stars, And broken shafts of moon-glimmer Fall upon the earth, Am I too old to see the fairies dance? I cannot find them any more.””

— Langston Hughes

“The lazy, laughing SouthWith blood on its mouth.The sunny-faced South,    Beast-strong,    Idiot-brained.The child-minded SouthScratching in the dead fire’s ashesFor a Negro’s bones.    Cotton and the moon,    Warmth, earth, warmth,    The sky, the sun, the stars,    The magnolia-scented South.Beautiful, like a woman,Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,    Passionate, cruel,    Honey-lipped, syphilitic”

— Langston Hughes

“I am a Negro:    Black as the night is black,    Black like the depths of my Africa.I’ve been a slave:    Cæsar told me to keep his door-steps clean.    I brushed the boots of Washington.I’ve been a worker:    Under my hand the pyramids arose.    I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.I’ve been a singer:    All the way from Africa to Georgia    I carried my sorrow songs.    I made ragtime.I’ve been a victim:    The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.    They lynch me now in Texas.I am a Negro:    Black as the night is black,    Black like the depths of my Africa.””

— Langston Hughes

“We buried him high on a windy hill,But his soul went out to sea.I know, for I heard, when all was still,His sea-soul say to me:Put no tombstone at my head,For here I do not make my bed.Strew no flowers on my grave,I’ve gone back to the wind and wave.Do not, do not weep for me,For I am happy with my sea.””

— Langston Hughes

“The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.””

— Langston Hughes

“The sea is a wilderness of waves, A desert of water. We dip and dive, Rise and roll, Hide and are hidden On the sea. Day, night, Night, day, The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.””

— Langston Hughes

“Sea CalmHow still,How strangely stillThe water is today.It is not goodFor waterTo be so still that way.””

— Langston Hughes

“Mexican Market WomanThis ancient hagWho sits upon the groundSelling her scanty waresDay in, day round,Has known high wind-swept mountains,And the sun has madeHer skin so brown.””

— Langston Hughes