Countee Cullen

This is the song of the Wakeupworld,
The beautiful beast with long tail curled:"Wake up,
O World;
O World, awake

We shall not always plant while others
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;

The many sow, but only the chosen reap;
Happy the wretched host if Day be brief,
That with the cool oblivion of sleep A dawnless Night may soothe the smart of grief
If from the soil our sweat enriches sprout One meagre blossom for o...

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a
Keep looking straight at me

Never love with all your heart,
It only ends in aching;
And bit by bit to the smallest
That organ will be breaking

Since men grow diffident at last,
And care no whit at all,
If spring be come, or the fall be past,
Or how the cool rains fall,

Wherein are words sublime or noble
What Invests one speech with haloed eminence,
Makes it the sesame for all doors shut,
Yet in its like sees but impertinence