For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.
I was reared in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage.
All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind
Not for myself I make this prayer, But for this race of mine That stretches forth from shadowed places Dark hands for bread and wine.