Part 25

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 veiléd 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 angel-music From the dead, And ever, as they sang, Some wingéd 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.

Then, at last, I saw and shamed; I knew how these dumb, dark, and dusky things Had given blood and life, To fend the caves of underground, The great black caves of utter night, Where earth lay full of mothers And their babes.

Little children sobbing in darkness, Little children crying in silent pain, Little mothers rocking and groping and struggling, Digging and delving and groveling, Amid the dying-dead and dead-in-life And drip and dripping of warm, wet blood, Far, far beneath the wings,-- The folding and unfolding of almighty wings.

I bent with tears and pitying hands, Above these dusky star-eyed children,-- Crinkly-haired, with sweet-sad baby voices, Pleading low for light and love and living-- And I crooned:

"Little children weeping there, God shall find your faces fair; Guerdon for your deep distress, He shall send His tenderness; For the tripping of your feet Make a mystic music sweet In the darkness of your hair; Light and laughter in the air-- Little children weeping there, God shall find your faces fair!"

I strode above the stricken, bleeding men, The rampart 'ranged against the skies, And shouted: "Up, I say, build and slay; Fight face foremost, force a way, Unloose, unfetter, and unbind; Be men and free!"

Dumbly they shrank, Muttering they pointed toward that peak, Than vastness vaster, Whereon a darkness brooded, "Who shall look and live," they sighed; And I sensed The folding and unfolding of almighty wings.

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 wingéd, 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.

Alone, aloft, I saw through firmaments on high The drama of Almighty God, With all its flaming suns and stars. "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 veiléd 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 through 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.

VIII

THE IMMORTAL CHILD

If a man die shall he live again? We do not know. But this we do know, that our children's children live forever and grow and develop toward perfection as they are trained. All human problems, then, center in the Immortal Child and his education is the problem of problems. And first for illustration of what I would say may I not take for example, out of many millions, the life of one dark child.

* * * * *

It is now nineteen years since I first saw Coleridge-Taylor. We were in London in some somber hall where there were many meeting, men and women called chiefly to the beautiful World's Fair at Paris; and then a few slipping over to London to meet Pan-Africa. We were there from Cape Colony and Liberia, from Haiti and the States, and from the Islands of the Sea. I remember the stiff, young officer who came with credentials from Menelik of Abyssinia; I remember the bitter, black American who whispered how an army of the Soudan might some day cross the Alps; I remember Englishmen, like the Colensos, who sat and counseled with us; but above all, I remember Coleridge-Taylor.

He was a little man and nervous, with dark-golden face and hair that bushed and strayed. His fingers were always nervously seeking hidden keys and he was quick with enthusiasm,--instinct with life. His bride of a year or more,--dark, too, in her whiter way,--was of the calm and quiet type. Her soft contralto voice thrilled us often as she sang, while her silences were full of understanding.

Several times we met in public gatherings and then they bade me to their home,--a nest of a cottage, with gate and garden, hidden in London's endless rings of suburbs. I dimly recall through these years a room in cozy disorder, strewn with music--music on the floor and music on the chairs, music in the air as the master rushed to the piano now and again to make some memory melodious--some allusion real.

And then at last, for it was the last, I saw Coleridge-Taylor in a mighty throng of people crowding the Crystal Palace. We came in facing the stage and scarcely dared look around. On the stage were a full orchestra, a chorus of eight hundred voices, and some of the world's famous soloists. He left his wife sitting beside me, and she was very silent as he went forward to lift the conductor's baton. It was one of the earliest renditions of "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast." We sat at rapt attention and when the last, weird music died, the great chorus and orchestra rose as a man to acclaim the master; he turned toward the audience and then we turning for the first time saw that sea of faces behind,--the misty thousands whose voices rose to one strong shout of joy! It was a moment such as one does not often live. It seemed, and was, prophetic.

This young man who stepped forth as one of the most notable of modern English composers had a simple and uneventful career. His father was a black surgeon of Sierra Leone who came to London for study. While there he met an English girl and this son was born, in London, in 1875.

Then came a series of chances. His father failed to succeed and disappeared back to Africa leaving the support of the child to the poor working mother. The child showed evidences of musical talent and a friendly workingman gave him a little violin. A musician glancing from his window saw a little dark boy playing marbles on the street with a tiny violin in one hand; he gave him lessons. He happened to gain entrance into a charity school with a master of understanding mind who recognized genius when he saw it; and finally his beautiful child's treble brought him to the notice of the choirmaster of St. George's, Croyden.