Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.
-Langston Hughes

Mister Backlash, Mister Backlash,
Just who do you think I am?
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages,
Send my son to Vietnam.

You give me second class houses,
Second class schools.
Do you think that colored folks
Are just second class fools?

When I try to find a job
To earn a little cash,
All you got to offer
Is a white -backlash.

But the world is big,
Big and bright and round-
And it’s full of folks like me who are
Black,

By what sends
the white kids
I ain’t sent:-
I know I can’t
be President.

What don’t bug
them white kids
sure bugs me:
We know everybody
ain’t free.

Lies written down
for white folks
ain’t for us a tall:
Liberty And Justice-
Huh! For All?
-Langston Hughes

The Christmas trees are almost all sold
And the ones that are left go cheap
The children almost all over town
Have almost gone to sleep.

The skyscraper lights on Christmas Eve
Have almost all gone out
There’s very little traffic
Almost no one about.

Our town’s almost as quiet
As Bethlehem must have been
Before a sudden angel chorus
Sang: PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TO MEN!

Our old Statue of Liberty
Looks down almost with a smile
As the Island of

Comes the Colored Hour:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies-
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!
Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make

My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,

I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder were I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?
-Langston Hughes

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o-Lanterns caper
And the wind won’t wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.

By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off goind
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whisteles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going
Yet Leontyne’s unpacking.

In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa
Not of

Sometimes
A night funeral
Going by
Carries home
A re-bop daddy.

Hearse and flowers
Guarantee
He’ll never hype
Another paddy.

It’s hard to believe,
But dead in there,
He’ll never lay a
Hype nowhere!

He’s my ace-boy,
Gone away.
Wake up and live!
He used to say.

Squares
Who couldn’t dig him,
Plant him now
Out where it makes
No diff’ no how.
-Langston Hughes

I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
To Probe in polite way
The why and wherewithal
Of darkness U.S.A.
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Murmuring gently

Over fraises du bois,
“I’m so ashamed of being white.”
The lobster is delicious,
The wine divine,
And center of attention
At the damask table, mine.
To be a Problem on
Park Avenue at eight
Is not so bad.
Solutions to the Problem,
Of

Too many years
Beatin’ at the door-
I done beat my
both fists sore.

Too many years
Tryin’ to get up there-
Done broke my ankles down,
Got nowhere.

Too many years
Climbin’ that hill,
‘Bout out of breath.
I got my fill.

I’m gonna plant my feet
On solid ground.
If you want to see me,
Come down.
-Langston Hughes

Good morning, daddy!
Ain’t you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?

Listen closely:
You’ll hear their feet
Beating out and beating out a

You think
It’s a happy beat?

Listen to it closely:
Ain’t you heard
something underneath
like a –

What did I say?

Sure,
I’m happy!
Take it away!

Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!
Y-e-a-h!

-Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance!  Whirl!  Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening-
A tall, slim tree-
Night coming tenderly
Black like me-
-Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-Langston Hughes

Out of the dust of dreams
Fairies weave their garments.
Out of the purple and rose of old memories
They make rainbow wings.
No wonder we find them such marvelous things!
-Langston Hughes

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed

I, too, am America.
-Langston Hughes

In time of silver rain
The earth
Puts forth new life again
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads

Of life,
Of life,
Of life!

In time of silver rain
The butterflies
Lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow
And trees put forth
New leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing, boys and girls
go singing too,
In time of silver rain

When spring
And life.
Are new.
-Langston Hughes

Between two rivers,
North of the park,
Like darker rivers
The streets are dark.

Black and white,
Gold and brown-
Chocolate-custard
Pie of a town.

Dream within a dream,
Our dream deferred.

Good morning, daddy!

Ain’t you heard?
-Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed –
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me)

O, let my land

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can’t sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There’s a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we’re put in the back-
But there ain’t no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where’s the horse
For a kid that’s
black?
-Langston Hughes

A little Southern colored child
Comes to a Northern school
And is afraid to play
With the white children.

At first they are nice to him,
But finally they taunt him
And call him “nigger.”

The colored children
Hate him, too,

After awhile.

He is a little dark boy
With a round black face
And a white embroidered collar.

Concerning this
Little frightened child
One might make a story
Charting tomorrow.
-Langston Hughes

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with -song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?
Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,–
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?
-Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor?

Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.

So, boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps.
‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now?
For I’se still goin’,

The night is beautiful
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
-Langston Hughes