Song of the Son

POUR O pour that parting soul in song,

O pour it in the sawdust glow of night,

Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night,

And let the valley carry it along.

And let the valley carry it along.

O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,

So scant of grass, so profligate of pines,

Now just before an epoch's sun declines

Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee,

Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

In time, for though the sun is setting on

A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;

Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet

To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,

Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums,

Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,

Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare

One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

An everlasting song, a singing tree,

Caroling softly souls of slavery,

What they were, and what they are to me,

Caroling softly souls of slavery.

Jean Toomer

Reapers

BLACK reapers with the sound of steel on stones

Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones

In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done,

And start their silent swinging, one by one.

Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,

And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,

His belly close to ground. I see the blade,

Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

Jean Toomer

Harvest Song

I AM a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All

my oats are cradled.

But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them.

And I hunger.

I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it.

I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry.

I hunger.

My eyes are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time.

I am a blind man who stares across the hills, seeking

stack'd fields of other harvesters.

It would be good to see them . . crook'd, split, and

iron-ring'd handles of the scythes. It would be

good to see them, dust-caked and blind. I hunger.

(Dusk is a strange fear'd sheath their blades are dull'd in.)

My throat is dry. And should I call, a cracked grain

like the oats . . . eoho--

I fear to call. What should they hear me, and offer

me their grain, oats, or wheat, or corn? I have

been in the fields all day. I fear I could not taste

it. I fear knowledge of my hunger.

My ears are caked with dust of oatfields at harvest-time.

I am a deaf man who strains to hear the calls of other

harvesters whose throats are also dry.

It would be good to hear their songs . . reapers of

the sweet-stalk'd cane, cutters of the corn . .

even though their throats cracked and the

strangeness of their voices deafened me.

I hunger. My throat is dry. Now that the sun has

set and I am chilled, I fear to call. (Eoho, my

brothers!)

I am a reaper. (Eoho!) All my oats are cradled.

But I am too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger.

I crack a grain. It has no taste to it.

My throat is dry . . .

O my brothers, I beat my palms, still soft, against the

stubble of my harvesting. (You beat your soft

palms, too.) My pain is sweet. Sweeter than

the oats or wheat or corn. It will not bring me

knowledge of my hunger.

Jean Toomer