Martin Luther King Poems

Inscribed to friends under arrest for treason against the slave power. THE age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk; with blood too pale and tame To pay the debt they owe to shame...

WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth In blue Brazilian skies; And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth From sunset to sunrise, From the great mountains to the Atla...

"The thing which has the most dissevered the people from the Pope,--the unforgivable thing,--the breaking point between him and them,--has been the encouragement and promotion he g...

The earliest poem in this division was my youthful tribute to the great reformer when himself a young man he was first sounding his trumpet in Essex County. I close with the verses...

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass Eager to heed desire's insistent call: Ah, little dark...

GONE, gone,--sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever demon strews Poison with the fa...

Deze eatin' folks may tell me ub de gloriz ub spring lam', An' de toofsumnis ub tuckey et wid cel'ry an' wid jam; Ub beef-st'ak fried wid unyuns, an' sezoned up so fine-- But you'...

RIGHT in the track where Sherman Ploughed his red furrow, Out of the narrow cabin, Up from the cellar's burrow, Gathered the little black people, With freedom newly dowered, Where,...

NOT unto us who did but seek The word that burned within to speak, Not unto us this day belong The triumph and exultant song. Upon us fell in early youth The burden of unwelcome tr...

OH, none in all the world before Were ever glad as we! We're free on Carolina's shore, We're all at home and free. Thou Friend and Helper of the poor, Who suffered for our sake, To...

I want to die while you love me, While yet you hold me fair, While laughter lies upon my lips And lights are in my hair. I want to die while you love me, And bear to that still bed...

If we must die--let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die-...

This and the four following poems have special reference to that darkest hour in the aggression of slavery which preceded the dawn of a better day, when the conscience of the peopl...

One does such work as one will not, And well each knows the right; Though the white storm howls, or the sun is hot, The black must serve the white. And it's, oh, for the white man'...

There are no hollows any more Between the mountains; the prairie floor Is like a curtain with the drape Of the winds' invisible shape; And nowhere seen and nowhere heard The sea's...

Why do men smile when I speak, And call my speech The whimperings of a babe That cries but knows not what it wants? Is it because I am black? Why do men sneer when I arise And stan...

It was not fate which overtook me, Rather a wayward, wilful wind That blew hot for awhile And then, as the even shadows came, blew cold. What pity it is that a man grown old in lif...

ACROSS the sea I heard the groans Of nations in the intervals Of wind and wave. Their blood and bones Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones, And sucked by priestly cannibals. I...

Keep me 'neath Thy mighty wing, Keep me, Jesus, keep me; Help me praise Thy Holy name, Keep me, Jesus, keep me. O my Lamb, come, my Lamb, O my good Lamb, Save me, Jesus, save me. H...

On summer afternoons I sit Quiescent by you in the park, And idly watch the sunbeams gild And tint the ash-trees' bark. Or else I watch the squirrels frisk And chaffer in the grass...

On hearing the bells ring on the passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The resolution was adopted by Congress, January 31, 1865. The ratification by the requi...

The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men, in Southern Kansas, in May, 1858, took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French voyageurs. A BLUSH as of roses Where rose never gre...

DOUGLAS MISSION, August, 1854, LAST week--the Lord be praised for all His mercies To His unworthy servant!--I arrived Safe at the Mission, via Westport; where I tarried over night,...

A STRENGTH Thy service cannot tire, A faith which doubt can never dim, A heart of love, a lip of fire, O Freedom's God! be Thou to him! Speak through him words of power and fear, A...

A pleasant print to peddle out In lands of rice and cotton; The model of that face in dough Would make the artist's fortune. For Fame to thee has come unsought, While others vainly...

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes, Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee. What you been doin', suh--makin' san' pies? Look at dat bib--You's ez du'ty ez me. Look at dat mouf--da...

Oh, for the veils of my far away youth, Shielding my heart from the blaze of the truth, Why did I stray from their shelter and grow Into the sadness that follows--to know! Impotent...

Summah night an' sighin' breeze, 'Long de lovah's lane; Frien'ly, shadder-mekin' trees, 'Long de lovah's lane. White folks' wo'k all done up gran'-- Me an' 'Mandy han'-in-han' Stru...

WE wait beneath the furnace-blast The pangs of transformation; Not painlessly doth God recast And mould anew the nation. Hot burns the fire Where wrongs expire; Nor spares the hand...

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk, Va., in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, who was seized in Boston without warra...