17 Poems by Jessie Redmon Fauset, Harlem Renaissance writer
By Emma Ward | On February 16, 2017 | Updated November 20, 2024 | Comments (4)
Presented here is selection of poems by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882 – 1961), a multi-talented, influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s.
Fauset was the literary editor of the magazine of the NAACP, The Crisis, and in her own right was a poet, essayist, translator, and novelist.
While working at The Crisis, she had the opportunity to publish her own work, which included editorials, stories, and poetry. All of the genres in which she wrote were appreciated by readers and literary critics alike.
Fauset edited and published the work of many noted Harlem Renaissance figures during her tenure at The Crisis; such was her influence that she’s considered one of the “midwives” of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement.
The last of Fauset’s four novels, Comedy, American Style, was published in 1933. Soon after, she bowed out of the literary life and applied another talent, that of the French language, to teaching it at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. She remained at the same school until her retirement in 1944.
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A portrait of Jessie Redmon Fauset by Laura Wheeler Waring (dated 1945)
Learn more about Jessie Redmon Fauset
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Ann Allen Shockley observed in Afro-American Women Writers that Fauset’s works, both fiction and poetry, “By choosing unpopular topics … Fauset challenged the preconceptions of the publishing industry and opened the way for literature which would appear in succeeding decades.” Jessie Fauset’s writings were largely forgotten by the time of her death in 1961, but fortunately, her work has been rediscovered and is once again the subject of study.
Jessie’s poetry was featured in several issues of The Crisis, where she served as editor, as well as a number of important anthologies in the 1920s. These included The Book of American Negro Poetry (edited by James Weldon Johnson, 1922), Ebony and Topaz (edited by Charles S. Johnson, 1927), and Caroling Dusk (edited by Countee Cullen, 1927).
The following poems included in this selection were sometimes published in more than one place; so the attributions given here aren’t necessarily the only time they appeared in print, though we’ve attempted to identify their earliest publication.
These poems are in the public domain.
- Douce Souvenance
- Christmas Eve in France
- Oriflamme
- Here’s April
- Rain Fugue
- Dead Fires
- La Vie C’est la Vie
- Noblesse Oblige
- Oblivion
- Words! Words!
- Touché
- The Return
- Rencontre
- Fragment
- Divine Afflatus
- Stars in Alabama
- Episode
- Enigma
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Douce Souvenance
Again, as always, when the shadows fall,
In that sweet space between the dark and day,
I leave the present and its fretful claims
And seek the dim past where my memories stay.
I dream an old, forgotten, far-off dream,
And think old thoughts and live old scenes anew,
Till suddenly I reach the heart of Spring—
The spring that brought me you!
I see again a little woody lane,
The moonlight rifting golden through the trees;
I hear the plaintive chirp of drowsy bird
Lulled dreamward by a tender, vagrant breeze;
I hold your hand, I look into your eyes,
I touch your lips,—oh, peerless, matchless dower!
Oh, Memory thwarting Time and Space and Death!
Oh, Little Perfect Hour!
(The Crisis, May 1920)
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Christmas Eve in France
Oh, little Christ, why do you sigh
As you look down tonight
On breathless France, on bleeding France,
And all her dreadful plight?
What bows your childish head so low?
What turns your cheek so white?
Oh, little Christ, why do you moan,
What is it that you see
In mourning France, in martyred France,
And her great agony?
Does she recall your own dark day,
Your own Gethsemane?
Oh, little Christ, why do you weep,
Why flow your tears so sore
For pleading France, for praying France,
A suppliant at God’s door?
“God sweetened not my cup,” you say,
“Shall He for France do more?”
Oh, little Christ, what can this mean,
Why must this horror be
For fainting France, for faithful France,
And her sweet chivalry?
“I bled to free all men,” you say
“France bleeds to keep men free.”
Oh, little, lovely Christ—you smile!
What guerdon is in store
For gallant France, for glorious France,
And all her valiant corps?
“Behold I live, and France, like me,
Shall live for evermore.”
(The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922. Edited by James Weldon Johnson)
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Oriflamme
I think I see her sitting bowed and black,
Stricken and seared with slavery’s mortal scars,
Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet
Still looking at the stars.
Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons,
Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars,
Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set,
Still visioning the stars!
(The Crisis 19, January 1920, and The Book of Negro Poetry, edited by James Weldon Johnson, 1922)
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Here’s April
This town that yesterday was dark and mean,
And dank and raw with Winter’s freezing air,
Is Light itself today, and verdant Sheen
Gold-tinted, and besprent with perfume rare;
Translated over night to a parterre
That makes me dream of Araby and Spain,
And all the healing places of the Earth,
Where one lays by his woe, his bitter pain,—
For peace and mirth.
II.
Old Winter that stayed by us black and drear,
And laid his blighting seal on everything,
Is vanished.—Is it true he once was here?—
Mark how the ash-trees bud, and children sing,
And birds set up a faint, shy jargoning;
And healing balm pours out from bole and leafe.
For Spring—sweet April’s here in tree and grass!
Oh foolish heart to fret so with your grief!
This too shall pass!
(The Crisis, April 1924)
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Rain Fugue
Slanting, driving, Summer rain
How you wash my heart of pain!
How you make me think of trees,
Ships and gulls and flashing seas!
In your furious, tearing wind,
Swells a chant that heals my mind;
And your passion high and proud,
Makes me shout and laugh aloud!
Autumn rains that start at dawn,
“Dropping veils of thinnest lawn,”
Soaking sod between dank grasses,
Sweeping golden leaves in masses,—
Blotting, blurring out the Past,
In a dream you hold me fast;
Calling, coaxing to forget
Things that are, for things not yet.
Winter tempest, winter rain,
Hurtling down with might and main,
You but make me hug my hearth,
Laughing, sheltered from your wrath.
Now I woo my dancing fire,
Piling, piling drift-wood higher.
Books and friends and pictures old,
Hearten while you pound and scold!
Pattering, wistful showers of Spring
Set me to remembering
Far-off times and lovers too,
Gentle joys and heart-break rue,—
Memories I’d as lief forget,
Were not oblivion sadder yet.
Ah! you twist my mind with pain,
Wistful, whispering April rain!
Summer, Autumn, Winter rain,
How you ease my heart of pain!
Whispering, wistful showers of Spring,
How I love the hurt you bring!
(The Crisis, August 1924)
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Dead Fires
If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing,
Then better far the hateful fret, the sting.
Better the wound forever seeking balm
Than this gray calm!
Is this pain’s surcease? Better far the ache,
The long-drawn dreary day, the night’s white wake,
Better the choking sigh, the sobbing breath
Than passion’s death!
(Palms, October, 1926)
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La Vie C’est la Vie
On summer afternoons I sit
Quiescent by you in the park,
And idly watch the sunbeams gild
And tint the ash-trees’ bark.
Or else I watch the squirrels frisk
And chaffer in the grassy lane;
And all the while I mark your voice
Breaking with love and pain.
I know a woman who would give
Her chance of heaven to take my place
To see the love-light in your eyes,
The love-glow on your face!
And there’s a man whose lightest word
Can set my chilly blood afire;
Fulfilment of his least behest
Defines my life’s desire.
But he will none of me, Nor I
Of you. Nor you of her. ‘Tis said
The world is full of jests like these —
I wish that I were dead.
(Caroling Dusk, edited by Countee Cullen, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1927)
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“Literary midwife” of the Harlem Renaissance
Renaissance Women: 13 Female Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
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Noblesse Oblige
Lolotte, who attires my hair,
Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps;
Trails her hand before her eyes;
Hangs her head and mopes and sighs,
Mutters of the pangs of hell.
Fills the circumambient air
With her plaints and her despair.
Looks at me:
“May you never know, Mam’selle,
Love’s harsh cruelty.”
Love’s dart lurks in my heart too,–
None may know the smart
Throbbing underneath my smile.
Burning, pricking all the while
That I dance and sing and spar,
Juggling words and making quips
To hide the trembling of my lips.
I must laugh
What time I moan to moon and star
To help me stand the gaff.
What a silly thing is pride!
Lolotte bares her heart.
Heedless that each runner reads
All her thoughts and all her needs.
What I hide with my soul’s life
Lolotte tells with tear and cry.
Blurs her pain with sob and sigh
Happy Lolotte, she!
I must jest while sorrow’s knife
Stabs in ecstasy.
“If I live, I shall outlive.”
Meanwhile I am barred
From expression of my pain.
Let my heart be torn in twain,
Only I may know the truth.
Happy Lolotte, blessed she
Who may tell her agony!
On me a seal is set.
Love is lost, and — bitter truth —
Pride is with me yet!
(Caroling Dusk, edited by Countee Cullen, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1927)
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Oblivion
I hope when I am dead that I shall lie
In some deserted grave — I cannot tell you why,
But I should like to sleep in some neglected spot
Unknown to every one, by every one forgot.
There lying I should taste with my dead breath
The utter lack of life, the fullest sense of death;
And I should never hear the note of jealousy or hate,
The tribute paid by passersby to tombs of state.
To me would never penetrate the prayers and tears
That futilely bring torture to dead and dying ears;
There I should lie annihilate and my dead heart would bless
Oblivion — the shroud and envelope of happiness.
Analysis of “Oblivion”
(The Book of American Negro Poetry. Edited by James Weldon Johnson, 1922)
Words! Words!
How did it happen that we quarreled?
We two who loved each other so!
Only the moment before we were one,
Using the language that lovers know.
And then of a sudden, a word, a phrase
That struck at the heart like a poignard’s blow.
And you went berserk, and I saw red,
And love lay between us, bleeding and dead!
Dead! When we’d loved each other so!
How could it happen that we quarreled!
Think of the things we used to say!
“What does it matter, dear, what you do?
Love such as ours has to last for aye!”
—”Try me! I long to endure your test!”
—”Love, we shall always love, come what may!”
What are the words the apostle saith?
“In the power of the tongue are Life and Death!”
Think of the things we used to say!
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Touché
DEAR, when we sit in that high, placid room,
“Loving” and “doving” as all lovers do,
Laughing and leaning so close in the gloom,—
What is the change that creeps sharp over you?
Just as you raise your fine hand to my hair,
Bringing that glance of mixed wonder and rue?
“Black hair,” you murmur, “so lustrous and rare,
Beautiful too, like a raven’s smooth wing;
Surely no gold locks were ever more fair.”
Why do you say every night that same thing?
Turning your mind to some old constant theme,
Half meditating and half murmuring?
Tell me, that girl of your young manhood’s dream,
Her you loved first in that dim long ago
Had she blue eyes? Did her hair goldly gleam?
Does she come back to you softly and slow,
Stepping wraith-wise from the depths of the past?
Quickened and fired by the warmth of our glow?
There I’ve divined it! My wit holds you fast.
Nay, no excuses ; ’tis little I care.
I knew a lad in my own girlhood’s past,–
Blue eyes he had and such waving gold hair!
Analysis of Touché
(Caroling Dusk, 1927)
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The Return
I that had found the way so smooth
With gilly-flowers that beck and nod,
Now find that same road wild and steep
With need for compass and for rod.
And yet with feet that bleed, I pant
On blindly,—stumbling back to God!
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Rencontre
My heart that was so passionless
Leapt high last night when I saw you!
Within me surged the grief of years
And whelmed me with its endless rue.
My heart that slept so still, so spent,
Awoke last night,—to break anew!
(Caroling Dusk, edited by Countee Cullen, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1927)
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Fragment
The breath of life imbued those few dim days!
Yet all we had was this,—
A flashing smile, a touch of hands, and once
A fleeting kiss.
Blank futile death inheres these years between!
Still naught have you and I
But frozen tears, and stifled words, and once
A sharp caught cry.
(Caroling Dusk, edited by Countee Cullen, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1927)
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Divine Afflatus
Tell me, swart children of the Southland
Chopping at cotton
In the sandy soil,
What do ye dream?
W hat deeds, what words of heroes
Leaven and lighten up Your toil?
Know ye of L’Ouverture who freed a nation?
Heard ye of Crispus Attucks,
Or of Young?
Does fiery Vesey
Stir the spark within ye,
Or Douglass
Of the rare and matchless tongue?
That Washington
Who moulded a Tuskegee—
Does he inspire ye?
Does brave Moton thrill?
Mark ye Du Bois
That proud, unyielding eagle,
Beckoning ye higher than the highest hill?
But the swart children
Of the Southland
Stopping to dash the sweatbeads
From dull brows, Answer:
“These names Mean nothing to us,
They, nor the unheard causes they espouse.
Only we know meek Jesus,
Thorn-encircled,
Broken and bleeding
In his Passion’s totls;
And Lazarus
Sharing crumbs with dogs;
And Job,
Potsherd in hand, a-scraping at his boils!
(Ebony and Topaz: A Collecteana, edited by Charles S. Johnson, 1927)
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Stars in Alabama
In Alabama
Stars hang down so low,
So low, they purge the soul
With their infinity.
Beneath their holy glance
Essential good
Rises to mingle with them
In that skiey sea.
At noon
Within the sandy cotton-field
Beyond the clay, red road
Bordered with green,
A Negro lad and lass
Cling hand in hand,
And passion, hot-eyed, hot-lipped,
Lurks unseen.
But in the evening
When the skies lean down,
He’s but a wistful boy,
A saintly maiden she,
For Alabama stars
Hang down so low,
So low, they purge the soul
With their infinity.
(The Crisis 35, January 1928)
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Enigma
There is no peace with you,
Nor any rest!
Your presence is a torture to the brain.
Your words are barbed arrows to the breast,
And one but greets
To wish you sped again.
Frustrate you make desire
And action vain.
There is no peace with you.
No peace . . .
Nor any rest.
Yet in your absence
Longing springs anew,
And hopefulness besets the baffled brain.
“If only you were you and yet not you!”
If you such joy could give as you give pain!
Then what an unguent for the burning breast!
And for the harassed heart
What rapture true!
“If only you were you and yet not you!”
There is no peace with you
Nor ever any rest!
(this poem was reprinted in The Poetry of the Negro 1746–1949, edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. It was likely first published in The Crisis in the 1920s, though this is unclear)
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More about Jessie Redmon Fauset
I love the one you chose. I’m so glad I could help 🙂
Thank you for these, and for the entire site too! I want to be helpful by pointing out that the first photograph might be Crystal Bird Fauset.
Karen, you’re right! One needs to be careful with Google image search. I’ve removed it and replaced with one of the few extant photos of Jessie Redmon Fauset. Thank you for taking the time to point that out.
When I first read this poem I thought it was a treatise to Writers’ Block. As I read it again I saw a relationship between a male and female. But when I read it a third time I returned to my original analysis that it was about Writer’s Block. This may not have been the writer’s inspiration in writing this poem, but it is a strong example of Ambiguity.!