TRANSLATION

by: Anne Spencer (1882-1975)

      E trekked into a far country,
      My friend and I.
      Our deeper content was never spoken,
      But each knew all the other said.
      He told me how calm his soul was laid
      By the lack of anvil and strife.
      "The wooing kestrel," I said, "mutes his mating-note
      To please the harmony of this sweet silence."
      And when at the day's end
      We laid tired bodies 'gainst
      The loose warm sands,
      And the air fleeced its particles for a coverlet;
      When star after star came out
      To guard their lovers in oblivion --
      My soul so leapt that my evening prayer
      Stole my morning song!

"Translation" is reprinted from The Book of American Negro Poetry. Ed. James Weldon Johnson. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1922.

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