Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the madness of a mobbed
and mocked and murdered people; straining at the armposts of Thy throne,
we raise our shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones of our
stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, by the very blood of
Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth this? Tell us the plan; give us the
sign!

_Keep not Thou silent, O God!_

Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer and dumb to our dumb
suffering. Surely Thou, too, art not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless,
heartless thing!

_Ah! Christ of all the Pities!_

Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous words! Thou art
still the God of our black fathers and in Thy Soul's Soul sit some soft
darkenings of the evening, some shadowings of the velvet night.

But whisper--speak--call, great God, for Thy silence is white terror to
our hearts! The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path!

Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, the coward, and
without, the liar. Whither? To death?

_Amen! Welcome, dark sleep!_

Whither? To life? But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup
pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that
clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet
shudder lest we must,--and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful
shape.

_Selah!_

In yonder East trembles a star.

_Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord!_

Thy Will, O Lord, be done!

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