The Congo
By Vachel Lindsay
A Study of the Negro Race
I—THEIR BASIC SAVAGERYFAT black bucks in a wine-barrel room,Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
A deep rollingbass
Pounded on the table,Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
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Hard as they were able,Boom, boom, BOOM,With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.
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I could not turn from their revel in derision. THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THEBLACK,
More deliberate.Solemnly chanted
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. Then along that riverbankA thousand miles
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Tattooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust songAnd a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. And “BLOOD!” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
A rapidly pilingclimax of speed and racket
“BLOOD!” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors;
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“Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,Harry the uplands,Steal all the cattle,Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,Bing!
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Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM!”A roaring, epic, rag-time tune
With a philosophic pause
From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon.Death is an Elephant,
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Torch-eyed and horrible,
Shrilly and witha heavily accented metre
Foam-flanked and terrible.BOOM, steal the pygmies,BOOM, kill the Arabs,BOOM, kill the white men,
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HOO, HOO, HOO.Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost
Like the wind inthe chimney
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.Hear how the demons chuckle and yellCutting his hands off, down in Hell.
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Listen to the creepy proclamation,Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation,Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay,Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:—“Be careful what you do,
All the O soundsvery golden.Heavy accentsvery heavy.45
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By Vachel Lindsay a Study of the Negro Race
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| Upload Date: | 12/01/2009 |
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