Poems by Langston HughesFine living . . . a la carte?
Come to the Waldorf-Astoria!
LISTEN HUNGRY ONES!
Look! See what Vanity Fair says about the
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
Here I sit
With my shoes mismated.
Lawdy-mercy!
I's frustrated!
By what sends
the white kids
I ain't sent:
I know I can't
be President.
What don't bug
them white kids
sure bugs me:
My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
It's such a
Bore
Being always
Poor.
When a man starts out with nothing,
When a man starts out with his hands
Empty, but clean,
When a man starts to build a world,
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.
Love
Is a ripe plum
Growing on a purple tree.
Taste it once
And the spell of its enchantment
Will never let you be.
Love
I worked for a woman,
She wasn't mean--
But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.
Had to get breakfast,
You say I O.K.ed
LONG DISTANCE?
O.K.ed it when?
My goodness, Central
That was then!
I'm mad and disgusted
With that Negro now.
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human rivers
Night funeral
In Harlem:
Where did they get
Them two fine cars?
Insurance man, he did not pay--
Now dreams
Are not available
To the dreamers,
Nor songs
To the singers.
In some lands
Dark night
And cold steel
Prevail
When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
When I was home de
Sunshine seemed like gold.
Since I come up North de
2 and 2 are 4.
4 and 4 are 8.
But what would happen
If the last 4 was late?
And how would it be
If one 2 was me?
I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
How still,
How strangely still
The water is today,
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.
been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
When the shoe strings break
On both your shoes
And you're in a hurry-
That's the blues.
When you go to buy a candy bar
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you--
Then, it will be true.
I will take you heart.
I will take your soul out of your body
As though I were God.
I will not be satisfied
Tell all my mourners
To mourn in red --
Cause there ain't no sense
In my bein' dead.
Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Over There,
World War II.
Dear Fellow Americans,
I write this letter
Hoping times will be better
When this war
Is through.
