From Barren Brown Stems To Glistening Leaf-buds;

When God Had Made The Man, He Made Him Out Of Stuff That Sung All The Time And Glittered All Over. Some Angels Got Jealous And Chopped Him Into Millions Of Pieces, But Still He Glittered And Hummed. So They Beat Him Down To Nothing But Sparks But Each Little Spark Had A Shine And A Song. So They Covered Each One Over With Mud. And The Lonesomeness In The Sparks Make Them Hunt For One Another.

She Had An Inside And An Outside Now And Suddenly She Knew How Not To Mix Them.

Justice, Like Beauty, Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

She's Got Those Big Black Eyes With Plenty Shiny White In Them That Makes Them Shine Like Brand New Money And She Knows What God Gave Women Eyelashes For, Too. Her Hair Is Not What You Might Call Straight. It's Negro Hair, But It's Got A Kind Of White Flavor. Like The Piece Of String Out Of A Ham. It's Not Ham At All, But It's Been Around Ham And Got The Flavor.

I Am Not Tragically Colored. There Is No Great Sorrow Dammed Up In My Soul, Nor Lurking Behind My Eyes. I Do Not Mind At All. I Do Not Belong To The Sobbing School Of Negrohood Who Hold That Nature Somehow Has Given Them A Lowdown Dirty Deal And Whose Feelings Are All Hurt About It. Even In The Helter-skelter Skirmish That Is My Life, I Have Seen That The World Is To The Strong Regardless Of A Little Pigmentation More Or Less. No, I Do Not Weep At The World—i Am Too Busy Sharpening My Oyster Knife.