(After reading John W. Vandercook's chronicle of sable glory)
THESE men were kings, albeit they were black, Christophe 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."
