T. Timothy Fortune, "Dreams of Life"
There were no kings of men till men
Made kings of men, and of the earth;
There were no privileged classes when
First Nature, man and beasts, had birth.
Man was sole monarch of his sphere,
And each with equal power was made;
Each from the earth partook his share;
Each shared with each earth's sun and shade.
No fetters on the limbs were bound;
The intellect was free as light;
Man's every wish abundance found;
He gloried in his earth-wide right.
God made the earth and sky—the breath
Of mountain and of smiling vale—
And filled them all with life, not death,
As bracing as the ocean gale!
Published in Colored American Magazine, September 1909
Also published in Dreams of Life, 1905