EASTER-EMANCIPATION

1863-1913

"Woman, woman, woman!"
I cried in mounting terror.
"Woman and Child!"
And the cry sang back
Thro' Heaven with the
Whirring of almighty wings.

Wings, wings, endless wings,
Heaven and earth are wings;
Wings that flutter, furl and fold,
Always folding and unfolding,
Ever folding yet again;
Wings, veiling some vast
And veiled face,
In blazing blackness,
Behind the folding and unfolding,
The rolling and unrolling of
Almighty wings!

I saw the black men huddle,
Fumed in fear, falling face downward;
Vainly I clutched and clawed,
Dumbly they cringed and cowered,
Moaning in mournful monotone:
O Freedom, O Freedom,
O Freedom over me;
Before I'll be a slave,
I'll be buried in my grave,
And go home to my God,
And be free.

It was as angel music
From the dead,
And ever, as they sang,
The winged Thing of wings, filling all
Heaven,
Folding and unfolding, and folding yet
again,
Tore out their blood and entrails,
'Til I screamed in utter terror
And a silence came:
A silence and the wailing of a babe.

IAM dead;
Yet somehow, somewhere,
In Time's weird contradiction, I
May tell of that dread deed, wherewith
I brought to Children of the Moon
Freedom and vast salvation.

I was a woman born, the
And trod that streaming street
That ebbs and flows from Harlem's hills
Thro' caves and cañons limned in light,
Down to the twisting sea.

That night of nights,
I stood alone and at the End
Until the sudden highway to the Moon,
Golden in splendor,
Became too real to doubt.

Dimly I set foot upon the air;
I fled, I flew, thro' thrills of light,
With all about, above, below the whirring
Of almighty wings.

I found a twilight land,
Where, hardly hid, the sun
Sent softly saddened rays of
Red and brown to burn the iron earth
And bathe the snow-white peaks
In mighty splendor.

Black were the men,
Hard, hairy and silent slow,
Moving as shadows,
Bending with face of fear to earthward;
And women there were none.

Some

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Yet did we build of iron, bricks and blood;
We built a day, a year, a thousand years.
Blood was the mortar, blood and tears,
And, ah, the Thing, the Thing of wings,
The wingèd folding wing of Things,
Did furnish much mad mortar
For that tower.

Slow and ever slower rose the towering task,
And with it rose the sun,
Until at last on one wild day,
Wind-whirled, cloud-swept and terrible,
I stood beneath the burning shadow
Of the peak.
Beneath the whirring of almighty wings,
While downward from my feet
Streamed the long line of dusky faces
And the wail of little children sobbing under
Earth.

"Freedom!" I cried.
"Freedom!" cried Heaven, Earth and Stars,
And a Voice near-far,
Amid the folding and unfolding of Almighty
wings
Answered, "I am Freedom—
Who sees my face is free—
He and his."

I dared not look;
Downward I glanced on deep bowed heads
and closed eyes,
Outward I gazed on flecked and flaming
blue—
But ever onward, upward flew
The sobbing of small voices;
Down, down, far down into the night.

Slowly I lifted livid limbs aloft;
Upward I strove: The Face, the Face;
Onward I reeled: The Face, the Face!
To Beauty wonderful as sudden death
Or horror horrible as endless life—
Up! Up! the blood-built way
(Shadow grow vaster!
Terror come faster!)
Up! Up to the blazing blackness
Of one veilèd face,
And endless folding and unfolding,
Rolling and unrolling of Almighty wings:
The last step stood!
The last dim cry of pain
Fluttered across the stars—
And then—

Wings, wings, triumphant wings,
Lifting and lowering, waxing and waning,
Swinging and swaying, twirling and
whirling,
Whispering and screaming, streaming and
gleaming,
Spreading and sweeping and, shading and
flaming—
Wings, wings, eternal wings,
'Til the hot red blood
Flood fleeing flood,
Thundered thro' Heaven and mine ears,
While all across a purple sky,
The last vast pinion
Trembled to unfold.

I rose upon the Mountain of the Moon;
I felt the blazing glory of the Sun.
I heard the Song of Children crying "Free!"
I saw the Face of Freedom—
And I died.

Alone, aloft
I saw through firmaments on high
the drama of Al mighty God
with all its flaming runs and stars