Caroling Dusk/Morning Light
For works with similar titles, see Morning Light.
MORNING LIGHT[1]
(The Dew-Drier)
Brother to the firefly—
For as the firefly lights the night,
So lights he the morning—
Bathed in the dank dews as he goes forth
Through heavy menace and mystery
Of half-waking tropic dawn,
Behold a little boy,
A naked black boy,
Sweeping aside with his slight frame
Night’s pregnant tears,
And making a morning path to the light
For the tropic traveler!
For as the firefly lights the night,
So lights he the morning—
Bathed in the dank dews as he goes forth
Through heavy menace and mystery
Of half-waking tropic dawn,
Behold a little boy,
A naked black boy,
Sweeping aside with his slight frame
Night’s pregnant tears,
And making a morning path to the light
For the tropic traveler!
2
Bathed in the blood of battle,
Treading toward a new morning,
May not his race—
Its body long bared to the world’s disdain,
Its face schooled to smile for a light to come—
May not his race, even as the Dew Boy leads,
Bear onward the world to a time
When tolerance, forbearance,
Such as reigned in the heart of ONE
Whose heart was gold
Shall shape the world for that fresh dawning
After the dews of blood?
Treading toward a new morning,
May not his race—
Its body long bared to the world’s disdain,
Its face schooled to smile for a light to come—
May not his race, even as the Dew Boy leads,
Bear onward the world to a time
When tolerance, forbearance,
Such as reigned in the heart of ONE
Whose heart was gold
Shall shape the world for that fresh dawning
After the dews of blood?
- ↑ (This poem, published in the CRISIS during the World War, was written after reading an account of the little African babies who are sent before the explorer into jungle grasses that tower many feet. The little boys, Dan Crawford says in his THINKING BLACK, who go out to tread down a path and by chance meet the lurking leopard or hyena are “Human Brooms,” and are called DEW-DRIERS.)