Langston Hughes

“ At the moment I cannot recall the name of any other person whatever who, at the age of twenty-three, has enjoyed so picturesque and rambling an existence as Langston Hughes. Indeed, a complete account of his disorderly and delightfully fantastic career would make a fascinating picaresque romance which I hope this young Negro will write before so much more befalls him that he may find it difficult to capture all the salient episodes within the limits of a single volume. ”

“ JIM.
Yeah, there’s a lot of good parts to me. You can have West Tampa if you want it.
DAISY.
You always was a nice quiet boy, Jim.
DAVE.
(Emerging from the store with a package of gum) Here’s your gum, Daisy.
JIM.
Oh, youse late. She’s done got gum now. Chaw that yourself.
DAVE.
(Slightly peeved and surprised) Hunh, you mighty fast here now with Daisy but you wasn’t that fast gettin’out of that white man’s chicken house last week.
JIM.
Who you talkin’’bout?
DAVE.
Hoo-oo? (Facetiously) You ain’t no owl. Your feet don’t fit no limb.
JIM.
Aw, nigger, hush. ”

“ Be your man.
[31]
TO A LITTLE LOVER-LASS, DEAD
She
Who searched for lovers
In the night
Has gone the quiet way
Into the still,
Dark land of death
Beyond the rim of day.
Now like a little lonely waif
She walks
An endless street
And gives her kiss to nothingness.
Would God his lips were sweet!
[32]
HARLEM NIGHT CLUB
Sleek black boys in a cabaret.
Jazz-band, jazz-band,—
Play, plAY, PLAY!
Tomorrow....who knows?
Dance today!
White girls’ eyes
Call gay black boys.
Black boys’ lips
Grin jungle joys.
Dark brown girls
In blond men’s arms.
Jazz-band, jazz-band,—
Sing Eve’s charms! ”

“ How come this fly-by-night Methodist preacher over here ... ain’t been here three months ... tries to stand up on my store porch and tries to tell me how to run my town? (MATTIE CLARK, the Mayor’s wife, comes timidly to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.) Ain’t no man gonna tell me how to run my town. ”

“ I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers. ”

“ A great many people went by them through the park. People they didn’t know. It was late afternoon. Nearly sunset and cold.
“And you husband?” he asked.
“We have three children. I’m working in the busar’s office at Columbia.”
“You’re looking very...” (he wanted to say old) ... “well,” he said.
But she understood. Under the trees in Washington Square, desperately she found herself reaching back into the past. She had been older than he then in Ohio. Now, she was not young any longer at all. Not young! Not young! But Bill was still young. ”

“ DAISY.
(Still on porch, half crying) Aw, my Lawd! I want to go home.
(General hubbub, women’s cries of “Don’t let ’em fight.” “Why don’t somebody stop ’em?” “What kind of men is you all, sit there and let them boys fight like that.” Men’s voices urging the fight: “Aw, let ’em fight.” “Go for him, Dave.” “Slug him, Jim.”
JIM makes another rush toward the steps. He staggers DAVE. DAVE knocks JIM sprawling once more. This time JIM grabs the mule bone as he rises, rushes DAVE, strikes DAVE over the head with it and knocks him out. DAVE falls prone on his back. There is great excitement.) ”

“ AFRAID
We cry among the skyscrapers
As our ancestors
Cried among the palms in Africa
Because we are alone,
It is night,
And we’re afraid.
[102]
POEM For the portrait of an African boy after the manner of Gauguin
All the tom-toms of the jungles beat in my blood,
And all the wild hot moons of the jungles shine in my soul.
I am afraid of this civilization—
So hard,
So strong,
So cold.
[103]
SUMMER NIGHT
The sounds
Of the Harlem night
Drop one by one into stillness.
The last player-piano is closed.
The last victrola ceases with the
“Jazz Boy Blues.” ”

“ Many nights they had spent walking, or talking, together. But something not very important had come between them. Then she had married a man she thought she loved. And the boy went away, bitter about women. ”

“ Black like me."
More of this wistful longing may be discovered in the poems entitled The South and As I Grew Older. His verses, however, are by no means limited to an exclusive mood; he writes caressingly of little black prostitutes in Harlem; his cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race in Cross and The Jester; he sighs, in one of the most successful of his fragile poems, over the loss of a loved friend. ”

“ Don’t no girl as good-lookin’as you is have to go home by herself tonight.
JIM.
No, cause I’m here.
DAVE.
(To DAISY) Don’t you trust yourself round that like wid all them ’gators and moccasins with that nigger there, Daisy (Pointing at JIM) He’s jus’ full of rabbit blood. What you need is a real man ... with good feet. (Cutting a dance step.)
DAISY.
I ain’t thinking ’bout goin’home yet. I’m goin’in the store. ”

“ Thank God, I ain’t gray all over. I’m just as good a man right now as any of you young ’uns. (He hurries on into the store.)
WALTER.
Daisy, where’s yo’ two body guards? It don’t look natural to see you thout nary one of ’em.
DAISY.
(Archly) I ain’t got no body guards. I don’t know what you talkin’ about.
LIGE.
Aw, don’ try to come dat over us, Daisy. You know who we talkin’ ’bout all right ... but if you want me to come out flat footed ... where’s Jim and Dave?
DAISY.
Ain’t they playin’ somewhere for de white folks? ”

“ Looka here, Hambo. Y’all Baptist carry dis close-communion business too far. If a person ain’t half drownded in de lake and half et up by alligators, y’all think he ain’t baptized, so you can’t take communion wid him. Now I reckon you can’t even drink lemonade and eat chicken perlow wid us.
HAMBO.
My Lord, boy, youse just full of words. Now, in de first place, if this year’s picnic was lak de one y’all had last year ... you ain’t had no lemonade for us Baptists to turn down. You had a big ole barrel of rain water wid about a pound of sugar in it and one lemon cut up over de top of it. ”

“ And not this land where life is cold.
We should have a land of trees,
Of tall thick trees
Bowed down with chattering parrots
Brilliant as the day,
And not this land where birds are grey.
Ah, we should have a land of joy,
Of love and joy and wine and song,
And not this land where joy is wrong.
Oh, sweet, away!
Ah, my beloved one, away!
[100]
LAMENT FOR DARK PEOPLES
I was a red man one time,
But the white men came.
I was a black man, too,
But the white men came.
They drove me out of the forest.
They took me away from the jungles. ”

“ We do so know how to run things, don’t we? Ain’t Brother Mayor a Methodist, and ain’t the school-teacher a ...? (His remarks are drowned out by the others.)
SIMMS.
No, we don’t like the way you’re runnin’ things. Now looka here, (Pointing at the Marshall) You got that lazy Lum Boger here for marshall and he ain’t old enough to be dry behind his ears yet ... and all these able-bodied means in this town! You won’t ’low nobody else to run a store ’ceptin’ you. And looka yonder (happening to notice the street light) only street lamp in town, you got in front of your place. ”

“ During the act the women all dressed up in starched dresses parade in and out of store. People buying groceries, kids playing in the street, etc. General noise of conversation, laughter and children shouting. But when the curtain rises there is momentary lull for cane-chewing. At left of porch four men are playing cards on a soap box, and seated on the edge of the porch at extreme right two children are engaged in a checker game, with the board on the floor between them. ”

“ He attended Central High School, from which he graduated, at Cleveland, Ohio, while in the summer, there and in Chicago, he worked as delivery- and dummy-boy in hat-stores. In his senior year he was elected class poet and editor of the Year Book.
After four years in Cleveland, he once more joined his father in Mexico, only to migrate to New York where he entered Columbia University. There, finding the environment distasteful, or worse, he remained till spring, when he quit, broke with his father and, with thirteen dollars in [10] cash, went on his own. ”

“ LOUNGER.
White folks needs jails. We colored folks don’t need no jail.
ANOTHER VILLAGER.
Yes, we do, too. Elder Simms is right....
(The argument becomes a hubbub of voices.)
TAYLOR.
(Putting down his basket) Now, I tell you a jail....
MRS. TAYLOR.
(Emerging from the store door, arms full of groceries, looking at her husband) Yeah, and if you don’t shut up and git these rations home I’m gonna be worse on you than a jail and six judges. Pickup that basket and let’s go. (TONY meekly picks up the basket and he and his wife exit as the sound of an approaching guitar is heard off stage.) ”