by Countee Cullen · 1929
Poetry
Countee Cullen's third collection, built around the long poem "The Black Christ": faith, family and race, in the strict forms he loved.
Content note: Written in 1929, these poems deal with racism, violence and faith, and use language of their time.
To the Three for Whom the Book
Once like a lady In a silken dress, The serpent might eddy Through the wilderness, Billow and glow And undulate In a rustling flow Of sinuous hate. Now dull-eyed and leaden, Of having lost His Eden He pays the cost. He shuns the tree That brought him low As grown to be Domestic; no Temptations dapple, From leaf to root, The modern apple Our meekest fruit. Dragon and griffin And basilisk
Whose stare could stiffen, And the hot breath whisk From the overbold Braving a gaze So freezing cold, Who sings their praise These latter days? That venemous head On a woman fair,— Medusa’s dead Of the hissing hair. No beasts are made Meet for the whir Of that sunken blade Excalibur. No smithies forge A shining sword Fit for the gorge Of a beast abhorred. Pale Theseus Would have no need, Were he with us, Of sword or thread; For long has been set The baleful star Of Pasiphaë’s pet, The Minotaur.
Though they are dead, Those ancient ones, Each bestial head Dust under tons Of dust, new beasts Have come, their heirs, Claiming their feasts As the old did theirs. Clawless they claw, Fangless they rend; And the stony maw Crams on without end.
