NEGRO YOUTH SPEAKS
147
ESCAPE
Shadows, shadows,
Hug me round
So that I shall not be found
By sorrow:
She pursues me
Everywhere,
I can't lose her
Anywhere.
Fold me in your black Abyss,
She will never look
In this—
Shadows, shadows,
Hug me round
In your solitude
Profound.
--Georgia Douglas Johnson.
THE RIDDLE
White men's children spread over the earth—
A rainbow suspending the drawn swords of birth,
Uniting and blending the races in one
The world man-cosmopolite-everyman's son!
He channels the stream of the red blood and blue,
Behold him! A Triton—the peer of the two;
Unriddle this riddle of "outside in”
White men's children in black men's skin.
- Georgia Douglas Johnson.
