Allison Davis, "To Those Dead And Gone" (1927)
By Allison Davis
Lie broken in the dark, cool loam
You still enrich, not with your force now,
But with your peace. You are a home
Where I return for wisdom, how
To know my own dark roots and this
Day’s newer race, a mute, mysterious
Past, whose shrouded sorrow is
A sign the fates have set us.
Nor are you as a past we scorn;
No mock was yours to us unknown.
We who to daily shame are born
Learn from you in whom our seed is sown.
But tragedy is more than token;
Here life and beauty lie frustrate,
As lie unnumbered broken
Races in the soil of every state.
Published in The Crisis, November 1927