The Song of the Smoke

American scholar, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, pacifist and writer, he published many articles, poems, novels and speeches which awarded him large recognition after his death. After the US ... [+]

I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am swinging in the sky,

I am ringing worlds on high;

I am the thought of the throbbing mills,

I am the soul of the Soul toil kills,

I am the ripple of trading rills.

Up I'm curling from the sod,
I am whirling home to God.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am wreathing broken hearts,

I am sheathing devils' darts;

Dark inspiration of iron times,

Wedding the toil of toiling climes,

Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes,

Down I lower in the blue,
Up I tower toward the true.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am darkening with song,

I am hearkening to wrong;

I will be black as blackness can,

The blacker the mantle the mightier the man,

My purpl'ing midnights no day dawn may ban.

I am carving God in night,
I am painting Hell in white.
I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am the smoke king,
I am black.

I am cursing ruddy morn,

I am hearsing hearts unborn;

Souls unto me are as mists in the night,

I whiten my black men, I blacken my white,

What's the hue of a hide to a man in his might!

Hail, then, gritty, grimy hands,
Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!
Hail to the smoke king
Hail to the black!

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

A New Kind of Literary Pulse

The Song of the Smoke

W.E.B Du Bois

W.E.B Du Bois