In the heart of the world is the call of God;
East—West—and North—and South.
Stirring, deep-yearning, breast-heaving call for God
A-tremble behind each mouth.
The heart’s ill of torments that rend men’s souls.
Skyward lift all faiths and hopes;
Across all the oceans the evidence rolls,
Refreshing all life’s arid slopes.
God in the highborn; God in the low;
God calls us, world-brothers. Hark ye! and know.
From Poems of the Four Seas I will take a piece that gives the Negro background for the yearning expressed in the foregoing poem:
BROTHERS
They bind his feet; they thong his hands
With hard hemp rope and iron bands.
They scourge his back in ghoulish glee;
And bleed his flesh;—men, mark ye—free.
They still his groans with fiendish shout,
Where flesh streams red they ply the knout.
Thus sons of men feed lust to kill
And yet, oh God! they’re brothers still.
They build a pyre of torch and flame
While Justice weeps in deepest shame.
E’en Death in pity bows its head,
Yet ’midst these men no prayer is said.
They gather up charred flesh and bone—
Mementos—boasting brave deed done.
They sip of gore their souls to fill;
Drink deep of blood their hands did spill.
Go tell the world what men have done
Who prate of God and yet have none;
Think of themselves as wholly good,
Blaspheme the name of brotherhood;
Who hearken not as brothers cry
For brother’s chance to live and die.
To keep a demon’s murder tryst
They’d rend the sepulcher of Christ.
VIII. Walter Everette Hawkins
CREDO
I am an Iconoclast.
I break the limbs of idols
And smash the traditions of men.