Sourced

• I, too, sing America.
  I am the darker brother.
  They send me to eat in the kitchen
  When company comes,
  But I laugh,
  And eat well,
  And grow strong.
  • "I, Too, Sing America," in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959)

• They'll see how beautiful I am
  And be ashamed —
  I, too, am America.
  • "I, Too, Sing America," in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959)

• The night is beautiful,
  So are the faces of my people.
  • "My People," in the magazine Poems in Crisis (October 1923); reprinted in The Weary Blues (1926)

• I've known rivers:
  I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
  flow of human blood in human veins.
  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
  • "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," from The Weary Blues (1926)

• I've known rivers:
  Ancient, dusky rivers.
  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
  • "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," from The Weary Blues (1926)

• The stars went out and so did the moon.
  The singer stopped playing and went to bed
  While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
  He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
  • "The Weary Blues," from The Weary Blues (1926)

• Way Down South in Dixie
  (Break the heart of me)
  They hung my black young lover
  To a cross roads tree.
  • "Song for a Dark Girl" (l. 1-4), from Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)

• Love is a naked shadow
  On a gnarled and naked tree.
  • Song for a Dark Girl (l. 11-12), from Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)

• While over Alabama earth
  These words are gently spoken:
  Serve — and hate will die unborn.
  Love — and chains are broken.
  • "Alabama Earth (at Booker Washington's grave)," from the anthology Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers (1941), ed. Arna Bontemps

• Hold fast to dreams
  For if dreams die
  Life is a broken-winged bird
  That cannot fly.
  • "Dreams," from the anthology Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers, ed. Arna Bontemps (1941)

• I was so sick last night I
  Didn't hardly know my mind.
  So sick last night I
  Didn't know my mind.
  I drunk some bad licker that
  Almost made me blind.
  • "Morning After," (l. 1-6), from Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)

• I swear to the Lord
  I still can't see
  Why Democracy means
  Everybody but me.
  • "The Black Man Speaks," from Jim Crow's Last Stand (1943)

Let America Be America Again, from A New Song (1938)

• Let America be America again.
  Let it be the dream it used to be.

• Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed —
  Let it be that great strong land of love
  Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
  That any man be crushed by one above.

• O, let my land be a land where Liberty
  Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
  But opportunity is real, and life is free,
  Equality is in the air we breathe.

• I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
  I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
  I am the red man driven from the land,
  I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek —
  And finding only the same old stupid plan
  Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

• For all the dreams we've dreamed
  And all the songs we've sung
  And all the hopes we've held
  And all the flags we've hung,
  The millions who have nothing for our pay —
  Except the dream that's almost dead today.

• O, let America be America again —
  The land that never has been yet —
  And yet must be — the land where every man is free.

• Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
  The steel of freedom does not stain.
  From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
  We must take back our land again,
  America!

• O, yes,
  I say it plain,
  America never was America to me,
  And yet I swear this oath —
  America will be!

• Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
  The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
  We, the people, must redeem
  The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
  The mountains and the endless plain —
  All, all the stretch of these great green states —
  And make America again!

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

• My motto,
  As I live and learn,
  is:
  Dig And Be Dug
  In Return.
  • "Motto"

• When you turn the corner
  And you run into yourself
  Then you know that you have turned
  All the corners that are left.
  • "Final Curve"

• Good evening, daddy
  I know you’ve heard
  The boogie-woogie rumble
  Of a dream deferred
  • "Boogie: 1 a.m."

• Why should it be my loneliness,
  Why should it be my song,
  Why should it be my dream
  deferred
  overlong?
  • "Tell Me"

• What happens
  to a dream deferred?
  Daddy, ain’t you heard?
  • "Good Morning"

• What happens to a dream deferred?
  Does it dry up
  like a raisin in the sun?
  Or fester like a sore
  And then run?
  Does it stink like rotten meat?
  Or crust and sugar over
  like a syrupy sweet?
  Maybe it just sags
  like a heavy load.
  Or does it explode?
  • "Harlem"

• There’s a certain
  amount of traveling
  in a dream deferred.
  • "Same in Blues"

• A certain amount
  of nothing
  in a dream deferred.
  • "Same in Blues"

• Daddy, daddy, daddy,
  All I want is you.
  You can have me, baby —
  but my lovin’ days is through.
  A certain amount
  of impotence
  in a dream deferred.
  • "Same in Blues"

• You talk like they
  don’t kick dreams
  around downtown.
  • "Comment on Curb"

• Democracy will not come
  Today, this year
  Nor ever
  Through compromise and fear.
  • "Democracy"

• I tire so of hearing people say,
  Let things take their course.
  Tomorrow is another day.
  I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
  I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.

• "Democracy"

• Dream within a dream,
  Our dream deferred.
  Good morning, daddy!
  Ain’t you heard?
  • "Island"

• The instructor said,

  Go home and write
  a page tonight.
  And let that page come out of you —
  Then, it will be true.
  

  • "Theme from English B"

• It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
  at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
  I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.
  • "Theme from English B"

• Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
  I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
  I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
  or records — Bessie, bop, or Bach.
  I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
  the same things other folks like who are other races.
  • "Theme from English B"

• You are white —
  yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
  That’s American.
  Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
  Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
  But we are, that’s true!
  As I learn from you,
  I guess you learn from me —
  although you’re older — and white —
  and somewhat more free.
  
  • "Theme from English B"