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• 1 2024-03-07T10:31:45-05:00 Countee Cullen, "Black Majesty" (1928) 1 plain 2024-03-07T10:31:45-05:00
  These men were kings albeit they were black:
     Toussaint and Dessalines and L'Ouverture;
  Their majesty has made me turn my back
     Upon a plaint I once shaped to endure.
  These men were black, I say, but they were crowned
     And purple-clad, however brief their time.
  Stifle your agony, let grief be drowned;
     We know joy had a day once and a clime.
  Dark gutter snipe, black sprawler-in-the-mud,
     A thing men did a man may do again;
  What answer filters through your sluggish blood
     To these dark ghosts who knew so bright a reign?
  "Lo, I am dark, but comely," Sheba sings;
     "And we were black," three shades reply, "but kings." 
  
  Published in Opportunity, May 1928