by seemslikeadream » Sat Sep 10, 2005 1:19 pm
<!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:teal;font-size:xx-small;"> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Let America be America again.<br>Let it be the dream it used to be.<br>Let it be the pioneer on the plain<br>Seeking a home where he himself is free.<br><br>(America never was America to me.)<br><br>Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--<br>Let it be that great strong land of love<br>Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme<br>That any man be crushed by one above.<br><br>(It never was America to me.)<br><br>O, let my land be a land where Liberty<br>Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,<br>But opportunity is real, and life is free,<br>Equality is in the air we breathe.<br><br>(There's never been equality for me,<br>Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.)<br><br>Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? <br>And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?<br><br>I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,<br>I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.<br>I am the red man driven from the land,<br>I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--<br>And finding only the same old stupid plan<br>Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.<br><br>I am the young man, full of strength and hope,<br>Tangled in that ancient endless chain<br>Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!<br>Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!<br>Of work the men! Of take the pay!<br>Of owning everything for one's own greed!<br><br>I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.<br>I am the worker sold to the machine.<br>I am the Negro, servant to you all.<br>I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--<br>Hungry yet today despite the dream.<br>Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!<br>I am the man who never got ahead,<br>The poorest worker bartered through the years.<br><br>Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream<br>In the Old World while still a serf of kings,<br>Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,<br>That even yet its mighty daring sings<br>In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned<br>That's made America the land it has become.<br>O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas<br>In search of what I meant to be my home--<br>For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,<br>And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,<br>And torn from Black Africa's strand I came<br>To build a "homeland of the free."<br><br>The free?<br><br>Who said the free? Not me?<br>Surely not me? The millions on relief today?<br>The millions shot down when we strike?<br>The millions who have nothing for our pay?<br>For all the dreams we've dreamed<br>And all the songs we've sung<br>And all the hopes we've held<br>And all the flags we've hung,<br>The millions who have nothing for our pay--<br>Except the dream that's almost dead today.<br><br>O, let America be America again--<br>The land that never has been yet--<br>And yet must be--the land where every man is free.<br>The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--<br>Who made America,<br>Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,<br>Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,<br>Must bring back our mighty dream again.<br><br>Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--<br>The steel of freedom does not stain.<br>From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,<br>We must take back our land again,<br>America!<br><br>O, yes,<br>I say it plain,<br>America never was America to me,<br>And yet I swear this oath--<br>America will be!<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,<br>The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,<br>We, the people, must redeem<br>The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.<br>The mountains and the endless plain--<br>All, all the stretch of these great green states--<br>And make America again!</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><br><br>Langston Hughes</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seemslikeadream@rigorousintuition>seemslikeadream</A> at: 9/10/05 11:20 am<br></i>