Effie Lee Newsome, "A Black Boy Dreams" (1927)
I trot on with the silver streams,
And laugh and build my little dreams.
I trip on with the lively brooks
Through meadowland and wood.
Ha, ho! How merrily I run!
To dream and move along is fun.
I tread the meads of yesterday
Where once the Indians used to play.
The soil belonged to white men next…
How many changes it has known!
For now it is my father’s own!
I trot on with these silver streams,
And laugh and build my little dreams,
Ha, ho, how merrily I run!
To dream yet move along is fun.
Published in The Crisis, October 1927