Ironic: LL.D. by William Stanley Braithwaite. James Weldon Johnson, ed. 1922. The Book of American Negro Poetry

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

Ironic: LL.D.

William Stanley Braithwaite


THERE are no hollows any more
Between the mountains; the prairie floor
Is like a curtain with the drape
Of the winds’ invisible shape;
And nowhere seen and nowhere heard	5
The sea’s quiet as a sleeping bird.

Now we’re traveling, what holds back
Arrival, in the very track
Where the urge put forth; so we stay
And move a thousand miles a day.	10
Time’s a Fancy ringing bells
Whose meaning, charlatan history, tells!