SCOTTSBORO, TOO, IS WORTH IT’S SONG by Countee Cullen.

I said:
Now will the poet sing,-
Their cries go thundering
Like blood and tears
Into the nation’s ears,
Like lightning dart
Into the nation’s heart.
Against disease and death and all things fell,
And war,
Their strophes rise and swell
To jar
The foe smug in his citadel.

Remembering their sharp and pretty
Tunes for Sacco and Vanzetti,
I said:
Here too’s a cause divinely spun
For those whose eye are on the sun,
Here in epitome
Is all disgrace
And epic wrong,
Like wine to brace
The minstrel heart, and blare it to song.

Surely, I said,
Now will the poets sing.
But they have raised no cry.
I wonder why…

Reference:
Countee Cullen

Category: Freedom,