Countee Cullen, "Extenuation to Certain Critics" (1927)
Shout Treason and Default,
Say I betray a sacred trust
Aching beyond this vault.
I'll bear your censure as your praise,
Yet never shall a clan
Confine my singing to its ways
Beyond the ways of man.
No racial option narrows grief;
Pain is no patriot;
And sorrow braids her dismal leaf
For all as lief as not.
With blind sheep groping every hill
Seeking an oriflamme,
What shepherd heart would keep its fill
For only the darker lamb?
Published in Ebony and Topaz, 1927