Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement

Poems by W.E.B. Du Bois

THE SONG OF THE SMOKE

I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am swinging in the sky.
I am ringing worlds on high:
I am the thought of the throbbing mills,
I am the soul of the soul toil kills,
I am the ripple of trading rills,
Up I'm curling from the sod,
I am whirling home to God.
I am the smoke king,
I am black
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am wreathing broken hearts,
I am sheathing devils' darts;
Dark inspiration of iron times,
Wedding the toil of toiling climes
Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes,
Down I lower in the blue,
Up I tower toward the true,
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am darkening with song,
I am hearkening to wrong;
I will be black as blackness can,
The blacker the mantle the mightier the man,
My purpl'ing midnights no day dawn may ban.
I am carving God in night,
I am painting hell in white.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.
I am cursing ruddy morn,
I am nursing hearts unborn;
Souls unto me are as mists in the night,
I whiten my blackmen, I beckon my white,
What's the hue of a hide to a man in his might!
Hail, then, grilly, grimy hands,
Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!
Hail to the smoke king,
Hail to the black!

[Originally published in The Horizon]