Langston Hughes, "Beggar Boy" (1926)
That I can neither hear nor feel nor see,
That I can neither know nor understand
And still it calls to me?
Is not he but a shadow in the sun----
A bit of clay, brown, ugly, given life?
And yet he plays upon his flute a wild free tune
As if Fate had not bled him with her knife!
Published in The Weary Blues, 1926