Pour O pour that parting soul in song <br />O pour it in the sawdust glow of night <br />Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight, <br />And let the valley carry it along. <br />And let the valley carry it along. <br />O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, <br />So scant of grass, so proligate of pines, <br />Now hust before an epoch's sun declines <br />Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, <br />Thy son, I have in time returned to thee. <br />In time, for though the sun is setting on <br />A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; <br />Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet <br />To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, <br />Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone. <br />O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, <br />Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, <br />Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare <br />One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes <br />an everlasting song, a singing tree, <br />Caroling softly souls of slavery, <br />What they were, and what they are to me, <br />Caroling softly souls of slavery.<br /><br />Jean Toomer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-of-the-son/
