The Suppliant

LONG have I beat with timid hands upon life's leaden door,

Praying the patient, futile prayer my fathers prayed before,

Yet I remain without the close, unheeded and unheard,

And never to my listening ear is borne the waited word.

Soft o'er the threshold of the years there comes this counsel cool:

The strong demand, contend, prevail; the beggar is a fool!

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Index to poems in the collection by Georgia Douglas Johnson