The Washer-Woman by Otto Leland Bohanan. James Weldon Johnson, ed. 1922. The Book of American Negro Poetry

James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922.

The Washer-Woman

Otto Leland Bohanan


A GREAT swart cheek and the gleam of tears,
The flutter of hopes and the shadow of fears,
And all day long the rub and scrub
With only a breath betwixt tub and tub.
Fool! Thou hast toiled for fifty years	5
And what hast thou now but thy dusty tears?
In silence she rubbed … But her face I had seen,
Where the light of her soul fell shining and clean.