The protest not infrequently takes the form of entreaty and appeal, sometimes the form of an invocation of divine wrath upon the doers of evil. The following poem from Watkins, unique and effective in form and biblical phrasing, is the kind of appeal that will not out of the mind:
A MESSAGE TO THE MODERN PHARAOHS
(Loose him and let him go—John 11.44)
“Loose him!”—this man on whom you plod
Beneath your heel hate-iron-shod;
His silent sorrow troubles God—
“Let him go!”
There will be plagues, wars will not cease,—
There cannot be a lasting peace
Until this being you release—
“Let him go!”
Each doomful kingdom—throne and crown—
Built on the lowly fettered down,
Shall perish—lo, the heavens frown—
“Let him go!”
Naught but a name is Liberty,
Naught but a name—Democracy,
Till love has made each mortal free—
“Let him go!”
“Loose him!” He has his part to play
In Life’s Great Drama, day by day,—
He has his mission, God’s own way,—
“Let him go!”
“Loose him!” ’Twill be your master rôle,
’Twill be your triumph and your goal:
’Twill be the saving of your soul—
“Let him go!”
Mr. Hawkins, whom I have quoted, entitled his book Chords and Discords. What did he mean by “discords”? Perhaps a disparagement of his muse’s efforts at music. Perhaps, and rather, something in the content, for the contrasts are sharp, the tones are piercing. These “discords” abound in contemporary Negro verse. Between the octave and the sestet of the following sonnet, by Mrs. Carrie W. Clifford, the discord is of the kind that stabs you: