“We all declare for liberty,” Lincoln said.
“We use the word and mean all sorts of things:
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
Rifle the basket that thy neighbor brings.”
The grizzled axman squinted at Honest Abe,
The six feet four of him, gaunt, sad of face,
The hands to split a log or cradle a babe,
The cracked palm hat, the homespun of his race.
“The wolf tears at the sheep’s throat: and the sheep
Extols the shepherd for cudgeling tyranny;
The wolf, convulsed with indignation deep,
Accuses the shepherd of murdering liberty.
“But the dictionary of the wolf is writ
In words the rats of time chew bit by bit.”
You can find this poem and others like it by checking his book out: “Harlem Gallery” and Other Poems of Melvin B. Tolson
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