Martin Luther King Poems

_Onus Probandi_ No more from out the sunset, No more across the foam, No more across the windy hills Will Sandy Star come home. He went away to search it With a curse upon his tong...

I kissed a kiss in youth Upon a dead man's brow; And that was long ago,-- And I'm a grown man now. It's lain there in the dust, Thirty years and more;-- My lips that set a light At...

As o'er his furrowed fields which lie Beneath a coldly dropping sky, Yet chill with winter's melted snow, The husbandman goes forth to sow, Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast The v...

Seems lak to me de stars don't shine so bright, Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light, Seems lak to me der's nothin' goin' right, Sence you went away. Seems lak to me de sky a...

Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; I look far out into the pregnant night, Where I can hear a solemn booming gun And catch the gleaming of a random light, That tells...

Heart free, hand free, Blue above, brown under, All the world to me Is a place of wonder. Sun shine, moon shine, Stars, and winds a-blowing, All into this heart of mine Flowing, fl...

"Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, 10th March, 1846.--This evening the female slaves were unusually excited in singing, and I had the curiosity to ask my negro servant, Said, what they were...

Oh, praise an' tanks! De Lord he come To set de people free; An' massa tink it day ob doom, An' we ob jubilee. De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves He jus' as 'trong as den; He say de...

I had no thought of violets of late, The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet In wistful April days, when lovers mate And wander through the fields in raptures sweet. The t...

Dar's a lazy, sortah hazy Feelin' grips me, thoo an' thoo; An' I feels lak doin' less dan enythin'; Dough de saw is sharp an' greasy, Dough de task et han' is easy, An' de day am f...

Too green the springing April grass, Too blue the silver speckled sky, For me to linger here, alas, While happy winds go laughing by, Wasting the golden hours indoors, Washing wind...

The "Times" referred to were those evil times of the pro-slavery meeting in Faneuil Hall, August 21, 1835, in which a demand was made for the suppression of free speech, lest it sh...

Out in the Night thou art the sun Toward which thy soul-charmed children run, The faith-high height whereon they see The glory of their Day To Be-- The peace at last when all is do...

So many cares to vex the day, So many fears to haunt the night, My heart was all but weaned away From every lure of old delight. Then summer came, announced by June, With beauty, m...

I am so tired and weary, So tired of the endless fight, So weary of waiting the dawn And finding endless night. That I ask but rest and quiet-- Rest for days that are gone, And qui...

The five poems immediately following indicate the intense feeling of the friends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted,...

The band of Gideon roam the sky, The howling wind is their war-cry, The thunder's roll is their trump's peal, And the lightning's flash their vengeful steel. Each black cloud Is a...

There is music in me, the music of a peasant people. I wander through the levee, picking my banjo and singing my songs of the cabin and the field. At the Last Chance Saloon I am as...

I must not gaze at them although Your eyes are dawning day; I must not watch you as you go Your sun-illumined way; I hear but I must never heed The fascinating note, Which, fluting...

THE flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow; Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below. And, calm and patient, Nature keeps Her ancient pro...

Come, children, hear the joyful sound, Ding, Dong, Ding. Go spread the glad news all around, Ding, Dong, Ding. _Chorus_ Oh, the big bell's tollin' up in Zion, The big bell's tollin...

Captain Jonathan Walker, of Harwich, Mass., was solicited by several fugitive slaves at Pensacola, Florida, to carry them in his vessel to the British West Indies. Although well aw...

In a publication of L. F. Tasistro--Random Shots and Southern Breezes-- is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the sta...

The reader of the biography of William Allen, the philanthropic associate of Clarkson and Romilly, cannot fail to admire his simple and beautiful record of a tour through Europe, i...

"Joseph Sturge, with a companion, Thomas Harvey, has been visiting the shores of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief and loss to poor and peaceable sufferers, occasioned b...

Jes' beyan a clump o' pines,-- Lis'n to 'im now!-- Hyah de jolly black boy, Singin', at his plow! In de early mornin', Thoo de hazy air, Loud an' clear, sweet an' strong Comes de m...

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard Heap high the golden corn No richer gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish horn! Let other lands, exulting, glean The apple from the pine, T...

(_A Negro Sermon_) And God stepped out on space, And He looked around and said, _"I'm lonely-- I'll make me a world."_ And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everythi...

Written on learning the terms of the treaty with Mexico. ACROSS the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand, The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's strand;...

The rights and liberties affirmed by Magna Charta were deemed of such importance, in the thirteenth century, that the Bishops, twice a year, with tapers burning, and in their ponti...