Read Selected Poems of Langston Hughes Online
Authors: Langston Hughes
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (14 page)
America!
Land created in common,
Dream nourished in common,
Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don’t be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don’t be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT
THAT OTHER’S CONSENT.
BETTER DIE FREE,
THAN LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me!
We are America!
To the enemy who would conquer us from without,
We say, NO!
To the enemy who would divide
and conquer us from within,
We say, NO!
FREEDOM!
BROTHERHOOD!
DEMOCRACY!
To all the enemies of these great words:
We say, NO!
A long time ago,
An enslaved people heading toward freedom
Made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.
Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.
From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.
That tree is for everybody,
For all America, for all the world.
May its branches spread and its shelter grow
Until all races and all peoples know its shade.
KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW!
HOLD ON!
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. After graduation from high school, he spent a year in Mexico with his father, then a year studying at Columbia University. His first poem in a nationally known magazine was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which appeared in
Crisis
in 1921. In 1925, he was awarded the First Prize for Poetry of the magazine
Opportunity
, the winning poem being “The Weary Blues,” which gave its title to his first book of poems, published in 1926. As a result of his poetry, Mr. Hughes received a scholarship at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he won his B.A. in 1929. In 1943, he was awarded an honorary Litt. D. by his alma mater; he has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1935), a Rosenwald Fellowship (1940), and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Grant (1947). From 1926 until his death in 1967, Langston Hughes devoted his time to writing and lecturing. He wrote poetry, short stories, autobiography, song lyrics, essays, humor, and plays. A cross section of his work was published in 1958 as
The Langston Hughes Reader
.
BOOKS BY LANGSTON HUGHES
POETRY
THE PANTHER AND THE LASH (1967)
ASK YOUR MAMA (1961)
SELECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES (1958)
MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED (1951)
ONE-WAY TICKET (1949)
FIELDS OF WONDER (1947)
SHAKESPEARE IN HARLEM (1942)
THE DREAM-KEEPER (1932)
FINE CLOTHES TO THE JEW (1927)
THE WEARY BLUES (1926)
FICTION
FIVE PLAYS BY LANGSTON HUGHES (1963)
SOMETHING IN COMMON AND OTHER STORIES (1963)
THE SWEET FLYPAPER OF LIFE (1955)
LAUGHING TO KEEP FROM CRYING (1952)
THE WAYS OF WHITE FOLKS (1934)
NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER (1930)
HUMOR
SIMPLE’S UNCLE SAM (1965)
BEST OF SIMPLE (1961)
SIMPLE STAKES A CLAIM (1957)
SIMPLE TAKES A WIFE (1953)
SIMPLE SPEAKS HIS MIND (1950)
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
FIRST BOOK OF AFRICA (1964)
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE WEST INDIES (1956)
THE FIRST BOOK OF RHYTHMS (1954)
THE FIRST BOOK OF JAZZ (1954)
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE NEGROES (1952)
—WITH ARNA BONTEMPS
POPO AND FIFINA (1932)
BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
FAMOUS NEGRO HEROES OF AMERICA (1958)
I WONDER AS I WANDER (1956)
FAMOUS NEGRO MUSIC-MAKERS (1955)
FAMOUS AMERICAN NEGROES (1954)
THE BIG SEA (1940)
ANTHOLOGY
THE LANGSTON HUGHES READER (1958)
HISTORY
—WITH MILTON MELTZER
BLACK MAGIC: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT (1967)
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: THE STORY OF THE NAACP (1962)
—WITH MILTON MELTZER
A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN AMERICA (1956)