Shall I Say, "My Son, You're Branded?"
- (First published in The Crisis, August 1919.)
- Shall I say, “My son, you’re branded in this country’s
- pageantry,
- By strange subtleties you’re tethered, and no forum
- sets you free?”
- Shall I mark the young lights fading through your soul-
- enchannelled eye,
- As the dusky pall of shadows screen the highway of
your sky?
- Or shall I, with love prophetic, bid you dauntlessly
- arise.
- Spurn the handicap that clogs you, taking what the
- world denies,
- Bid you storm the sullen fortress wrought by prejudice
- and wrong
- With a faith that shall not falter, in your heart and on
- your tongue!
