Selected Poems of Langston Hughes Read online

  Slave men and slave masters, all new—

  To a new world, America!

  With billowing sails the galleons came

  Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.

  In little bands together,

  Heart reaching out to heart,

  Hand reaching out to hand,

  They began to build our land.

  Some were free hands

  Seeking a greater freedom,

  Some were indentured hands

  Hoping to find their freedom,

  Some were slave hands

  Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom.

  But the word was there always:

                           FREEDOM.

  Down into the earth went the plow

  In the free hands and the slave hands,

  In indentured hands and adventurous hands,

  Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands

  That planted and harvested the food that fed

  And the cotton that clothed America.

  Clang against the trees went the ax in many hands

  That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.

  Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls

  That moved and transported America.

  Crack went the whips that drove the horses

  Across the plains of America.

  Free hands and slave hands,

  Indentured hands, adventurous hands,

  White hands and black hands

  Held the plow handles,

  Ax handles, hammer handles,

  Launched the boats and whipped the horses

  That fed and housed and moved America.

  Thus together through labor,

  All these hands made America.

  Labor! Out of labor came the villages

  And the towns that grew to cities.

  Labor! Out of labor came the rowboats

  And the sailboats and the steamboats,

  Came the wagons, stage coaches,

  Out of labor came the factories,

  Came the foundries, came the railroads,

  Came the marts and markets, shops and stores,

  Came the mighty products moulded, manufactured,

  Sold in shops, piled in warehouses,

  Shipped the wide world over:

  Out of labor—white hands and black hands—

  Came the dream, the strength, the will,

  And the way to build America.

  Now it is Me here, and You there.

  Now it’s Manhattan, Chicago,

  Seattle, New Orleans,

  Boston and El Paso—

  Now it is the U.S.A.

  A long time ago, but not too long ago, a man said:

                 ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL …

                 ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR

                 WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE

                           RIGHTS …

                 AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY

                 AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

  His name was Jefferson. There were slaves then,

  But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,

  And silently took for granted

  That what he said was also meant for them.

  It was a long time ago,

  But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:

                 NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH

                 TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN

                 WITHOUT THAT OTHER’S CONSENT.

  There were slaves then, too,

  But in their hearts the slaves knew

  What he said must be meant for every human being—

  Else it had no meaning for anyone.

  Then a man said:

                 BETTER TO DIE FREE,

                 THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.

  He was a colored man who had been a slave

  But had run away to freedom.

  And the slaves knew

  What Frederick Douglass said was true.

  With John Brown at Harpers Ferry, Negroes died.

  John Brown was hung.

  Before the Civil War, days were dark,

  And nobody knew for sure

  When freedom would triumph.

  “Or if it would,” thought some.

  But others knew it had to triumph.

  In those dark days of slavery,

  Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,

  The slaves made up a song:

                 KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!

                           HOLD ON!

  That song meant just what it said: Hold on!

  Freedom will come!

                 KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!

                           HOLD ON!

  Out of war, it came, bloody and terrible!

  But it came!

  Some there were, as always,

  Who doubted that the war would end right,

  That the slaves would be free,

  Or that the union would stand.

  But now we know how it all came out.

  Out of the darkest days for a people and a nation,

  We know now how it came out.

  There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.

  There was a great wooded land,

  And men united as a nation.

  America is a dream.

  The poet says it was promises.

  The people say it is promises—that will come true.

  The people do not always say things out loud,

  Nor write them down on paper.

  The people often hold

  Great thoughts in their deepest hearts

  And sometimes only blunderingly express them,

  Haltingly and stumbling say them,

  And faultily put them into practice.

  The people do not always understand each other.

  But there is, somewhere there,

  Always the trying to understand,

  And the trying to say,

  “You are a man. Together we are building our land.”

  America!

  Land created in common,

  Dream nourished in common,

  Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on!

  If the house is not yet finished,

  Don’t be discouraged, builder!

  If the fight is not yet won,

  Don’t be weary, soldier!

  The plan and the pattern is here,

  Woven from the beginning

  Into the warp and woof of America:

                 ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.

                 NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH

                 TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT

                 THAT OTHER’S CONSENT.

                 BETTER DIE FREE,

                 THAN LIVE SLAVES.

  Who said those things? Americans!

  Who owns those words? America!

  Who is America? You, me!

  We are America!

  To the enemy who would conquer us from without,

  We say, NO!

  To the enemy who would divide

  and conquer us from within,

  We say, NO!

                 FREEDOM!

    �
�                      BROTHERHOOD!

                                          DEMOCRACY!

  To all the enemies of these great words:

  We say, NO!

  A long time ago,

  An enslaved people heading toward freedom

  Made up a song:

                 Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!

  That plow plowed a new furrow

  Across the field of history.

  Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.

  From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.

  That tree is for everybody,

  For all America, for all the world.

  May its branches spread and its shelter grow

  Until all races and all peoples know its shade.

                 KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!

                           HOLD ON!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. After graduation from high school, he spent a year in Mexico with his father, then a year studying at Columbia University. His first poem in a nationally known magazine was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which appeared in Crisis in 1921. In 1925, he was awarded the First Prize for Poetry of the magazine Opportunity, the winning poem being “The Weary Blues,” which gave its title to his first book of poems, published in 1926. As a result of his poetry, Mr. Hughes received a scholarship at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he won his B.A. in 1929. In 1943, he was awarded an honorary Litt. D. by his alma mater; he has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1935), a Rosenwald Fellowship (1940), and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Grant (1947). From 1926 until his death in 1967, Langston Hughes devoted his time to writing and lecturing. He wrote poetry, short stories, autobiography, song lyrics, essays, humor, and plays. A cross section of his work was published in 1958 as The Langston Hughes Reader.

  BOOKS BY LANGSTON HUGHES

  POETRY

  THE PANTHER AND THE LASH (1967)

  ASK YOUR MAMA (1961)

  SELECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES (1958)

  MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED (1951)

  ONE-WAY TICKET (1949)

  FIELDS OF WONDER (1947)

  SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM (1942)

  THE DREAM-KEEPER (1932)

  FINE CLOTHES TO THE JEW (1927)

  THE WEARY BLUES (1926)

  FICTION

  FIVE PLAYS BY LANGSTON HUGHES (1963)

  SOMETHING IN COMMON AND OTHER STORIES (1963)

  THE SWEET FLYPAPER OF LIFE (1955)

  LAUGHING TO KEEP FROM CRYING (1952)

  THE WAYS OF WHITE FOLKS (1934)

  NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER (1930)

  HUMOR

  SIMPLE’S UNCLE SAM (1965)

  BEST OF SIMPLE (1961)

  SIMPLE STAKES A CLAIM (1957)

  SIMPLE TAKES A WIFE (1953)

  SIMPLE SPEAKS HIS MIND (1950)

  FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

  FIRST BOOK OF AFRICA (1964)

  THE FIRST BOOK OF THE WEST INDIES (1956)

  THE FIRST BOOK OF RHYTHMS (1954)

  THE FIRST BOOK OF JAZZ (1954)

  THE FIRST BOOK OF THE NEGROES (1952)

  —WITH ARNA BONTEMPS

  POPO AND FIFINA (1932)

  BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  FAMOUS NEGRO HEROES OF AMERICA (1958)

  I WONDER AS I WANDER (1956)

  FAMOUS NEGRO MUSIC-MAKERS (1955)

  FAMOUS AMERICAN NEGROES (1954)

  THE BIG SEA (1940)

  ANTHOLOGY

  THE LANGSTON HUGHES READER (1958)

  HISTORY

  —WITH MILTON MELTZER

  BLACK MAGIC: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT (1967)

  FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: THE STORY OF THE NAACP (1962)

  —WITH MILTON MELTZER

  A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA (1956)