|
These black men with ever-ready smiles
for boot toe or kind nod,
Have won -- but lost
The sun, their birthright, which
once they felt.
Now they are only conscious of
Mud-chinked cabin and
wind-torn shoddy,
The ever-rolling ridges, the untiring dust.
The unceasing cavalcade of hogsheads.
Birth to death! Deathless toil.
For them the shadowy side of Life's
interminable street,
A destiny -- of travail.
|