Classic Poem

Harlem John Henry mused into the sky,
“Beauty must be, must be, else life is dust.”
Outspread white wings that cleave the sullen gray,
Myriads of double wings, swooping on in threes,
Darting trilineate, far, near, in threes,
Twelve, thirty, sixty. And converges now
A flock of eagles, zooming crescendo roars;
In threes and twelves, thrice tens, and six times ten;
Six hundred more make dark the air, and cloud
That lone sarcophagus commemorative of him
Who cried in pain of soul, “Let us have peace!”

Beauty must be. But is this threat beauty?
Harlem John Henry hears the sinister drone
Of sextuples of planes. Sings jeeringly—

“I've got wings,
You've got wings,
All God's chillen got wings!”

Lowers his gaze from dun rain-clouds of May,
Where scarring wings insult the quiet of spring,
And laughs aloud at that white pediment,
On whose Corinthian beauty blazons tall
The hope-fraught words that make the Hudson sneer,
And Harlem John Henry rock with mirthless mirth.

Beauty and peace? Beauty and War? Yet no.
Beyond the clouds that drift athwart the wings,
An ancient scene seeps in John Henry's soul.
Above the crashing zoom of mighty sound,
John Henry hears a throbbing, vibrant note—
“Boom ba boom boom
Boom ba boom boom
Boom ba boom!”

Jungle bamboula beats the undertone
To all that fierce hoarse hiss above the sky.
Cruel corsairs of foul, slave-weighted ships;
Deep-throated wails from black, stench-crowded depths—

“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long ways from home!”

Beauty must be, must be, beauty, not death.
Harlem John Henry shivers. A gusty blast,
March winds benumbing Boston streets of old;
Crispus, the mighty, gone Berserk again,
Cursing his rage at red-coats' insolence,
Smiting a first wild blow for Liberty,
Dying, his face turned to the bullets' spirt.

“Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho!
Joshua fit de battle of Jericho,
An' de walls come tumblin' down!

Surcease of weary strife. An infant land
That marched erect to wealth on lowly backs.
Harlem John Henry's soul flowed to the past;
Zoom-zoom, resounding from the lowering sky,
Throbs like the bass-viol in the symphony—

“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt's land,
Tell ol' Pharaoh, let my people go!”

“Peace will be served by this, this airmada,
For me and mine, they said,” John Henry mused.
“We helped build beauty tall unto the skies.”
But years ere towers could rise of steel or stone,
Structures that clutched the rocks beneath the sea—
Boom-boom, drum beats of seventy years agone,
Boom-boom, answering the zoom of circling wings—

“We are coming, Father Abraham,
One hundred thousand strong!”

And in the camp fires' glow o'er Wagner's heights,
A thousand black throats hurl their melody—

“Dey look like men,
Dey look like men,
Dey look like men of war;
All dressed up in deir uniforms,
Dey look like men of war!”

Let us have peace! and weary warriors
Echoed the clatter of dropped pen that wrote
Fulfilment of three centuries of hope—

“Sometimes I feel like an eagle in de air,
Some-a dese morain's bright an' fair
I'm goin' to lay down my heavy load,
Goin' to spread my wings an' cleave de air!”

Who thought of beauty? Money marts and trade,
Argosies on seas, schools, churches, trusts and rings,
Politicians, wealth, cotton, wheat, machines,
Steel tracks, flung spider-like o'er continent.
Harlem John Henry hears a tiny voice,
Piping a thin thread through that turgid roar,
“Get money, get trades, be thrifty, be compliant!”

“We are climbin' Jacob's ladder,
We are climbin' Jacob's ladder,
Every roun' goes higher, higher,
Every roun' goes higher, higher,
Soldiers of de Cross!”

Beauty is lost in smugness, sordidness,
Harlem John Henry sights a bombing plane,
Flashing white shafts across the lowering sky,
As back in Ninety-eight there gleamed cruel steel
Of jingo jabs, and little children sang
About a ship called Maine, that sank too soon.
Surging up a red-hot Cuban hill,
A medieval charge in khaki garb—

“There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night!”

Beautiful the feet of them that bring us peace!
Beauty in wings that cleave th' uncharted air!
Zoom-zoom, by threes, by twelves, six hundred more,
Etching their path from cruel past to now.
Harlem John Henry stands with lifted face,
Ruthless star-shells are shattering round his feet;
He staggers through the muck of No-Man's Land—

“Singin' wid a sword in my han',
Singin' wid a sword in my han',
Purties' singing evah I heard,
Way ovah on de hill,
De angels shout an' I sing too,
Singin' wid a sword in my han'!”

Stumbles again from France and Flanders Field,
Back from the mire and rats and rotting dead,
And that wild wonder of a soundless world,
When death ceased thundering that November day.

“My Lord, what a mornin',
My Lord, what a mornin',
My Lord, what a mornin',
When de stars begun to fall!”

Back o'er the sea and home—that soon forgot,
Lustily singing, as he ever sang—

“Goin' to lay down my burden,
Down by the river-side,
Down by the river-side,
Goin' to study war no more!”

Now, o'er the Hudson on this day in May,
Circling six hundred wings, sinister, strange.
Harlem John Henry asks, was that in vain?
Beauty and peace? Must beauty die once more,
Slain o'er and o'er in stupid, senseless rage?
But from the throats of all those millions dusk,
Harlem John Henry hears that beauty's cry,
Beauty from pain, triumphant over hate—

“Great day! Great day! Great day, de righteous marchin',
Great day! Great day! God's goin' to build up Zion's walls,
De chariot rode on de mountain top;
God's goin' to build up Zion's walls!
My God he spoke an' de chariot stop,
God's goin' to build up Zion's walls!
Great day! Great day!”