The Weary Blues Quotes

“Bring me all of your dreams, You dreamers. Bring me all of your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too rough fingers Of the world.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Now, In June, When the night is a vast softness Filled with blue stars, And broken shafts of moon-glimmer Fall upon the earth, Am I too old to see the fairies dance? I cannot find them any more.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“The lazy, laughing South
With blood on its mouth.
The sunny-faced South,
    Beast-strong,
    Idiot-brained.
The child-minded South
Scratching in the dead fire’s ashes
For a Negro’s bones.
    Cotton and the moon,
    Warmth, earth, warmth,
    The sky, the sun, the stars,
    The magnolia-scented South.
Beautiful, like a woman,
Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,
    Passionate, cruel,
    Honey-lipped, syphilitic—
    That is the South.
And I, who am black, would love her
But she spits in my face.
And I, who am black,
Would give her many rare gifts
But she turns her back upon me.
    So now I seek the North—
    The cold-faced North,
    For she, they say,
    Is a kinder mistress,
And in her house my children
May escape the spell of the South.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“I am a Negro:
    Black as the night is black,
    Black like the depths of my Africa.
I’ve been a slave:
    Cæsar told me to keep his door-steps clean.
    I brushed the boots of Washington.
I’ve been a worker:
    Under my hand the pyramids arose.
    I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.
I’ve been a singer:
    All the way from Africa to Georgia
    I carried my sorrow songs.
    I made ragtime.
I’ve been a victim:
    The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
    They lynch me now in Texas.
I am a Negro:
    Black as the night is black,
    Black like the depths of my Africa.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“We buried him high on a windy hill,
But his soul went out to sea.
I know, for I heard, when all was still,
His sea-soul say to me:
Put no tombstone at my head,
For here I do not make my bed.
Strew no flowers on my grave,
I’ve gone back to the wind and wave.
Do not, do not weep for me,
For I am happy with my sea.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“The sea is a wilderness of waves, A desert of water. We dip and dive, Rise and roll, Hide and are hidden On the sea. Day, night, Night, day, The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Sea Calm

How still,
How strangely still
The water is today.
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Mexican Market Woman

This ancient hag
Who sits upon the ground
Selling her scanty wares
Day in, day round,
Has known high wind-swept mountains,
And the sun has made
Her skin so brown.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Afraid

We cry among the skyscrapers
As our ancestors
Cried among the palms in Africa
Because we are alone,
It is night,
And we're afraid.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people. Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“White ones, brown ones, What do you know About tomorrow Where all paths go?”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“I have merely sketched a primitive outline of a career as rich in adventures as a fruit-cake is full of raisins.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Does a jazz-band ever sob? They say a jazz-band’s gay. Yet as the vulgar dancers whirled And the wan night wore away, One said she heard the jazz-band sob When the little dawn was gray.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“We should have a land of trees, Of tall thick trees Bowed down with chattering parrots Brilliant as the day, And not this land where birds are grey.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“And the beauty of Susanna Jones in red Burns in my heart a love-fire sharp like pain.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“And the dark-faced child, listening, Knows that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories. He knows that Aunt Sue Never got her stories out of any book at all, But that they came Right out of her own life.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! whirl! whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening.… A tall, slim tree.… Night coming tenderly Black like me.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“Who crushed The grapes of joy And dripped their juice On you?”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“Play, plAY, PLAY! Tomorrow.… is darkness. Joy today!”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! whirl! whirl! Till the quick day is done. Rest at pale evening.… A tall, slim tree.… Night coming tenderly, Black like me.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“Returning to New York with plenty of money and a monkey, he presently shipped again—this time for Holland.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues: A Collection of Poems

“Without rest in the darkness, Weary as the tired night, My soul Empty as the silence, Empty with a vague, Aching emptiness, Desiring, Needing someone, Something.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“And the night becomes Still as a whispering heartbeat.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Tears are my laughter. Laughter is my pain. Cry at my grinning mouth, If you will. Laugh at my sorrow’s reign.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“The broken heart of love, The weary, weary heart of pain,— Overtones, Undertones, To the rumble of street cars, To the swish of rain.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“And when I get on the train I’ll cast my blues aside.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

“Weary, Weary, Trouble, pain. Sun’s gonna shine Somewhere Again.”
― Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues