Negro Poets and Their Poems

by Robert Thomas Kerlin

Enwrapt in beauty I scarce felt the thorn
That pricked me as I pulled the bud;
Till I beheld the rose, that summer morn,
Stained with my blood.

I sang a song that thrilled the evening air,
With beauty somewhat kin to love,
And all men knew that lyric song so rare
Came from above.

And men rejoiced to hear the golden strain;
But no man knew the price I paid,
Nor cared that out of my soul’s deathless pain
The song was made.

The lyrical faculty is evinced by such poems. But other singers of our day might have produced them—singers of the white race. Not so, I think, of “The Band of Gideon.” Upon that poem is the stamp, not of genius only, but of Negro genius. In it is re-incarnated, by a cultured, creative mind, the very spirit of the old plantation songs and sermons. The reader who has in his possession that background will respond to the unique and powerful appeal of this poem.

THE BAND OF GIDEON

The band of Gideon roam the sky,
The howling wind is their war-cry,
The thunder’s roll is their trumpet’s peal
And the lightning’s flash their vengeful steel.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strong deed,
“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

And men below rear temples high
And mock their God with reasons why,
And live in arrogance, sin, and shame,
And rape their souls for the world’s good name.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strong deed,
“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

The band of Gideon roam the sky
And view the earth with baleful eye;
In holy wrath they scourge the land
With earthquake, storm, and burning brand.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strong deed,
“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

The lightnings flash and the thunders roll,
And “Lord have mercy on my soul,”
Cry men as they fall on the stricken sod,
In agony searching for their God.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strong deed,
“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”

And men repent and then forget
That heavenly wrath they ever met.
The band of Gideon yet will come
And strike their tongues of blasphemy dumb.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strong deed,
“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.”