The fuzz in Alberta

The Song of the Smoke

BY W. E. B. DU BOIS

   I am the Smoke King

   I am black!

I am swinging in the sky,

I am wringing worlds awry;

I am the thought of the throbbing mills,

I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,

Wraith of the ripple of trading rills;

Up I’m curling from the sod,

I am whirling home to God;

   I am the Smoke King

   I am black.

   I am the Smoke King,

   I am black!

I am wreathing broken hearts,

I am sheathing love’s light darts;

   Inspiration of iron times

   Wedding the toil of toiling climes,

   Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes—

Lurid lowering ’mid the blue,

Torrid towering toward the true,

   I am the Smoke King,

   I am black.

   I am the Smoke King,

   I am black!

I am darkening with song,

I am hearkening to wrong!

   I will be black as blackness can—

   The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!

   For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.

I am daubing God in night,

I am swabbing Hell in white:

   I am the Smoke King

   I am black.

   I am the Smoke King

   I am black!

I am cursing ruddy morn,

I am hearsing hearts unborn:

   Souls unto me are as stars in a night,

   I whiten my black men—I blacken my white!

   What’s the hue of a hide to a man in his might?

Hail! great, gritty, grimy hands—

Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!

   I am the Smoke King

   I am black.