Zora Neale Hurston, "Journey's End" (1922)
Beneath a warming, stirring sun,
Beneath a flower-studded sod
That shows the smiling face of God.
In kindly earth that comfort gave,
A kindly couch where dreams the brave,
Where longing hurries weeping grief,
where halting goes the gilded chief.
Sweet spring will trail a bridal veil,
Grim frost shall lose his howl and wail,
And summer flowers deck my breast
And sunlight gild me from the west.
But I shall rise with verdant spring,
And I shall speak when song-birds sing,
And laughing ripple in the streams,
And flit and flicker on the beams.
Ah! let me rest when I have done.
When I my earthly course have run,
And wake me not to shame or blame,
Nor stir my dust with flore of flame.
Published in Negro World, April 8, 1922