Читать книгу The Big Sea - Langston Hughes - Страница 2
Table of Contents
ОглавлениеJay Hawk! K. U.!
That’s de reason why
My soul is full of color
Like de wings of a butterfly.
Just because I loves you
That’s de reason why
My heart’s a fluttering aspen leaf
When you pass by.
That grind and grind,
That grind out steel
And grind away the lives
Of men—
In the sunset their stacks
Are great black silhouettes
Against the sky.
In the dawn
They belch red fire.
The mills—
Grinding new steel,
Old men.
Fall on the white pages of his books
Like blood-clots of song
From the wounds of humanity.
I know a lover of life sings
When Carl Sandburg sings.
I know a lover of all the living
Sings then.
Her face is like an ancient cameo
Turned brown by the ages.
Come with a blast of trumpets,
Jesus!
When Susanna Jones wears red
A queen from some time-dead Egyptian night
Walks once again.
Blow trumpets, Jesus!
And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red
Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.
Sweet silver trumpets,
Jesus!
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.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
An August morning
In the thick white fog at Sekondi;
Coming out to take cargo
From anchored alien ships—
You do not know the fog
We strange so-civilized ones
Sail in always.
Lawd, I looked and saw a spider
Goin’ up de wall.
I say, I looked and saw a spider
Goin’ up de wall.
I said where you goin’, Mister Spider?
I’m goin’ to get my ashes hauled!
Than de good Lawd ever done.
Did more for my good gal
Than de good Lawd ever done.
I bought her some hair—
Cause de Lawd ain’t give her none.
One-eyed woman cry?
I say, is you ever seen a
One-eyed woman cry?
Jack, she can cry so good
Just out of that one old eye!
On lilacs at dawn
Comes the swift sun
And the dew is gone.
Love is like star-light
In the sky at morn
Star-light that dies
When day is born.
Love is like perfume
In the heart of a rose
The flower withers,
The perfume goes—
Love is no more
Than the breath of a rose,
No more
Than the breath of a rose.
Wake up cold in hand?
I’m goin’ down to de railroad, baby,
Lay ma head on de track.
I’m goin’ down to de railroad, babe,
Lay ma head on de track—
But if I see de train a-comin’,
I’m gonna jerk it back.
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got de weary blues
And can’t be satisfied.
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.
You don’t know my mind—
When you see me laughin’,
I’m laughin’ to keep from cryin’.
And we three
Smitten by beauty.
Thunder of the Rain God
And we three
Weary, weary.
Thunder of the Rain God
And you, she and I
Waiting for nothingness.
Do you understand the stillness
Of this house in Taos
Under the thunder of the Rain God?
That there should be a barren garden
About this house in Taos
Is not so strange,
But that there should be three barren hearts
In this one house in Taos—
Who carries ugly things to show the sun?
Did you ask for the beaten brass of the moon?
We can buy lovely things with money,
You, she and I,
Yet you seek,
As though you could keep,
This unbought loveliness of moon.
Our bodies are separate, individual things.
Touch our bodies, wind,
But blow quickly
Through the red, white, yellow skins
Of our bodies
To the terrible snarl,
Not mine,
Not yours,
Not hers,
But all one snarl of souls.
Blow quickly, wind,
Before we run back into the windlessness—
With our bodies—
Into the windlessness
Of our house in Taos.
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well.
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m gonna die,
Being neither white nor black?
Detroit,
Chicago,
Atlantic City,
Palm Beach.
Clean the spittoons.
The steam in hotel kitchens,
And the smoke in hotel lobbies,
And the slime in hotel spittoons
Part of my life.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars a Day.
Hey, boy!
A nickel,
A dime,
A dollar,
Two dollars
Buys shoes for the baby.
House rent to pay.
Gin on Saturday,
Church on Sunday.
My God!
Babies and gin and church
and women and Sunday
all mixed up with dimes and
dollars and clean spittoons
and house rent to pay.
Hey, boy!
A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.
Bright polished brass like the cymbals
Of King David’s dancers,
Like the wine cups of Solomon.
Hey, boy!
A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord,
A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—
At least I can offer that.
Com’mere, boy!
Put on yo’ red silk stockings,
Black gal.
Go out and let the white boys
Look at yo’ legs.
Ain’t nothin’ to do for you, nohow,
Round this town—
You’s too pretty.
Put on yo’ red silk stockings, gal,
An’ tomorrow’s chile’ll
Be a high yaller.
Go out an’ let de white boys
Look at yo’ legs.
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
Hallelujah! Undercover driveways!
Ma soul’s a witness for de Waldorf-Astoria!
