This is the debt I pay Just for one riotous day, Years of regret and grief. Sorrow without relief. Pay it I will to the end-- Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release-- Gives me the clasp of peace. Slight was the thing I bou... Read more of The Debt at Martin Luther King.caInformational Site Network Informational.ca
Privacy
  Home - Biography - I Have a Dream SpeechBlack History: Articles - Poems - Authors - Speeches - Folk Rhymes - Slavery Interviews

If We Must Die




by: Claude McKay

If we must die--let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die--oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but--fighting back!





Next: To The White Fiends
Previous: The Lynching


Add to del.icio.us Add to Reddit Add to Digg Add to Del.icio.us Add to Google Add to Furl Add to Stumble Upon
Add to Informational Site Network
Report
Privacy
SHAREBOOKMARK