18 Poems by Effie Lee Newsome

Effie Lee Newsome

Effie Lee Newsome (1885–1979), a writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, wrote poetry that was widely published in journals and anthologies of the 1920s. Notably, these included NAACP’s The Crisis and the Urban League’s Opportunity, and Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen.

Mary Effie Lee was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Wilburforce, Ohio. She took classes at Wilberforce University, Oberlin College, the Philadelphia Academy of the Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania, though she didn’t complete a degree.

As the editor of the children’s column “Little Page” in The Crisis, Effie Lee was one of the first  to write poems expressly for Black children. Her poetry encouraged younger readers to appreciate their worth and beauty.

In 1920, she married Rev. Henry Nesby Newsome. In her biographical note in Caroling Dusk, 1927, a highly regarded anthology of poetry by Black writers, she describes herself as “ a lover of the out-of-doors, and of the beautiful.” The love of the natural world in particular is amply reflected in her poetry.

After her husband’s death in 1937, Effie Lee returned to her hometown of Wilburforce, Ohio, where she worked as a children’s librarian.

Though Effie Lee Newsome never lived in New York City, her thoughtful poetry became a fixture in the era of the Harlem Renaissance movement. A volume containing dozens of her poems for children, Gladiola Garden: Poems of Outdoors and Indoors for Second Grade Readers, was published in 1940. 

 

 

Poems by Effie Lee Newsome

  • O Autumn, Autumn!
  • Sunset
  • Magnificat
  • The Bronze Legacy
  • Exodus
  • Cantabile
  • Negro Street Serenade (in the South)
  • Capriccio
  • Sun Disk
  • Sassafras Tea
  • Pansy
  • The Quilt
  • Sky Pictures
  • At the Pool
  • Bluebird
  • The Lord
  • A Black Boy Dreams
  • The Baker’s Boy

. . . . . . . . . .

O Autumn, Autumn!

O Autumn, Autumn! O pensive light and wistful sound!
Cold haunted sky, green-haunted ground!
When, wan, the dead leaves flutter by
Deserted realms of butterfly!
When robins band themselves together
To seek the soul of sun-steeped weather;
And all of summer’s largesse goes
For lands of olive and the rose! 

(The Crisis, October 1918)

. . . . . . . . . .

Sunset

Since Poets have told of sunset, 
What is left for me to tell?
I can only say that I saw the day
Press crimson lips to horizon gray,
And kiss the earth farewell.

(The Crisis, May 1921)

 

. . . . . . . . . .

Magnificat

In lapis lazuli—
Such azure shot with gold!—
On domes of sanctity
That chiseled tribute hold,
Or breathe the Word through breath of brush
In ripened tones and old;
Through silence and in state—
Still splendors everywhere!—
Earth’s tribute from earth’s great
Steeped deep in incensed air,
With praise imprint on wall and floor,
And even shadows there;
Cathedrals strive to voice
The thanks of mild Mary,
Who found herself the choice
For immortality,
When, lowly-born, there came the word
Earth’s Mother she should be.
God, we, thy lowly race,
Would thank thee for such grace.
Though we have never been
Welcome at earthly inn,
Thy glorious Son swung wide
Those gates that scoff at pride.
And guard a Realm of Equity,
Wherein abides the Wisdom Holy
Which shapes high purpose for the lowly.

(The Crisis, December 1922)

. . . . . . . . . .

The Bronze Legacy

’Tis a noble gift to be brown, all brown,
     Like the strongest things that make up this earth,
Like the mountains grave and grand,
     Even like the very land,
     Even like the trunks of trees—
     Even oaks, to be like these!
God builds His strength in bronze.
To be brown like thrush and lark!
     Like the subtle wren so dark!
Nay, the king of beasts wears brown;
     Eagles are of this same hue.
I thank God, then, I am brown.
     Brown has mighty things to do.
(The Crisis, October 1922)

 

 . . . . . . . . .

Exodus

Rank fennel and broom
Grow wanly beside
The cottage and room
We once occupied,
But sold for the snows!
The dahoon berry weeps in blood,
I know,
Watched by the crow–
I’ve seen both grow
In those weird wastes of Dixie!

(The Crisis, January 1925)

. . . . . . . . . .

Cantabile

Green holly has a lovely leaf
to make the Christmas bright,
Green cedar gives a spicy smell
On Christmas eve at night.
Green candles wear a joyous look,
Each with its golden light.
   Good holly, cedars,
   Candles gay!
   Come Christmas sprite!
   Come Christmas fay!
You’ve never known a brighter day
For joining childhood in its play!

(The Crisis, December 1925)

 

. . . . . . . . . .

Negro Street Serenade (in the South)

The quavering zigzag of the fiddle’s notes;
The thumping “tum-tum” of the banjo and guitar;
The gauzy quiver, flutter of the fiddle;
The measured muffled thud of that guitar!
And then a voice breaks forth—
Loose, careless, mellow—
A wealth of voice that rolls, soars,
Rolls and falls,
A reveling, rich voice,
Deeper than the banjo’s;
With more of melody than fiddles’ trebles,
Yet with that subtle minor trembling through 
Which shakes the viol’s slender vibrance
As the winds might—
And all of this out in a half-hushed autumn dusk!
The autumn air itself is tense, suspended,
And into this that most spontaneous song!
Which ripples on and floats and floats
Midst “thum” of banjo
And rhythmic background of that constant taut guitar,
And travels with the wavers of the fiddle,
To float and rise and rest with moon and star! 

(The Crisis, July 1926)

. . . . . . . . . .

Capriccio

When soft suns of autumn just mock with a shadow,
When thin wind of autumn light blows,
Aye, Swallow, I’d follow,
And follow and follow—
I’d follow the petals of rose!

(The Crisis, September 1926)

 

. . . . . . . . . .

Sun Disk

Grant old Egypt dead, what words shall thank thee
For the tenuous touch that carved the portion,
And wrought apart the place unchanging
That marks the dark man’s challenge
From the ancient world of art?
That winged sun has wended through the ages,
And known its shape on silk and blinding page;
Been inset with the gems of burning jewels
By artisans who swing again the disk
On wings outspread, which sweep e’en centuries by!
Signet of Ra that the swart Pharoahs singled,
“Sons of the sun,”
When time and the russet mummy are lost in abyss,
And symbols and sun disk shall no longer bind death
By mystical strands to the cycles of earth,
That wisdom supernal which made wise the Pharoahs,
Will judge generations more knowing than they,
Which bury themselves deep in His Life Eternal,
That fain would fold races in Infinity.

(The Carolina Magazine, May 1927)

. . . . . . . . .

Sassafras Tea

The sass’fras tea is red and clear
In my white china cup,
So pretty I keep peeping in
Before I drink it up.

I stir it with a silver spoon,
And sometimes I just hold
Al little tea inside the spoon,
Like it was lined with gold.

It makes me hungry just to smell
The nice hot sass’fras tea,
And that’s the one thing I really like
That they say’s good for me.

(Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen, 1927)

 

. . . . . . . . .

Pansy

Oh, the blue blue bloom
On the velvet cheek
Of the little pansy’s face
That hides away so still and cool
In some soft garden place!
The tiger lily’s orange fires,
The red lights from the rose
Aren’t like the gloom on that blue cheek
Of the softest flower that grows!

(Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen, 1927)

. . . . . . . . .

The Quilt

I have the greatest fun at night,
When casement windows are all bright.
I make believe each one’s a square
Of some great quilt up in the air.

The blocks of gold have black between,
Wherever only night is seen.
It surely makes a mammoth quilt-
With bits of dark and checks of gilt-
To cover up the tired day
In such a cozy sort of way.

(Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen, 1927)

 

. . . . . . . . . .

Sky Pictures

Sometimes a right white mountain
Or great soft polar bear,
Or lazy little flocks of sheep
Move on in the blue air.
The mountains tear themselves like floss,
The bears all melt away.
The little sheep will drift apart
In such a sudden way.
And then new sheep and mountains come.
New polar bears appear
And roll and tumble on again
Up in the skies so clear.
The polar bears would like to get
Where polar bears belong.
The mountains try so hard to stand
In one place firm and strong.
The little sheep all want to stop
And pasture in the sky,
But never can these things be done,
Although they try and try!

(Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen, 1927)

. . . . . . . . . .

The Baker’s Boy

The baker’s boy delivers loaves
All up and down our street.
His car is white, his clothes are white,
White to his very feet.
I wonder if he stays that way.
I don’t see how he does all day.
I’d like to watch him going home
When all the loaves are out.
His clothes must look quite different then,
At least I have no doubt.

(Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen, 1927)

 

. . . . . . . . . .

At the Pool

Like to stand right still awhile
Beside some forest pool.
The reeds around it smell so fresh,
The waters look so cool!
Sometimes I just hop in and wade,
And have a lot of fun,
Playing with bugs that dart across
The water in the sun.
They lodge here at this little pool—
All sorts ef bugs and things
That hop about its shady banks,
Or dart along with wings,
Or ‘scamper on the water top,
As water-striders go,
Or strange back-swimmers upside down,
Using their legs to row,
Or the stiff, flashing dragon flies,
The gentle demoiselle,
The clumsy, sturdy water-bugs,
And scorpions as well,
That come on top to get fresh air
From homes beneath the pool,
Where water-boatmen have their nooks,
On pebbles, as a rule.
And then, behold! Kingfisher comes,
That great big royal bird!
To him what is the dragon fly
That. kept the pool life stirred?
Or water-tigers terrible
That murder bugs all day?
Kingfisher comes, and each of these
Would hide itself away!
He swoops and swallows what he will,
A stone-fly or a frog.
Wing’d things rush frightened through the air,
Others to hole and log.
The little pool that held them all
I watch grow very bare,
But fisher knows his hide and seek—
He’ll find some one somewhere!

(The Crisis, February 1927)

. . . . . . . . . .

Bluebird

I just heard your soft smothered voice today!
I’m sure you’ll flit on in your lightwinged way,
Unmindful, undreaming of me,
Who have not yet seen you in blue and brown, 
But just heard your lush notes drip down, drip down
As showers from the black ash tree.

(The Crisis, April 1927)

 

. . . . . . . . . .

The Lord

Bring to me your heart all bleeding
When have I been known to mock men’s tears,
To scoff at men because their hearts were full,
Despise them in their grief?
I am the Comforter.
I make the lilies.
I am the merciful.
Hope in me.
Bring unto me the wounds that throb,
The sorrows of which you would not whisper.
I have known tears myself.
Tears cannot anger me.

(The Crisis, May 1927)

. . . . . . . . . .

A Black Boy Dreams

I trot on with the silver streams,
And laugh and build my little dreams.
I trip on with the lively brooks
Through meadowland and wood.
Ha, ho! How merrily I run!
To dream and move along is fun.
I tread the meads of yesterday
Where once the Indians used to play.
The soil belonged to white men next…
How many changes it has known!
For now it is my father’s own!
I trot on with these silver streams, 
And laugh and build my little dreams,
Ha, ho, how merrily I run!
To dream yet move along is fun.

(The Crisis, October 1927)

 
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