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One seed becomes
An everlasting song, a singing tree,
Caroling softly souls of slavery,
What they were, and what they are to me,
Caroling softly souls of slavery.

— Jean Toomer Poems from Cane (1923)

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More quotes by Jean Toomer

O singers, resinous and soft your songs
Above the sacred whisper of the pines,
Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,
Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.

Poems from Cane (1923)

Superstition saw
Something it had never seen before:
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.

Poems from Cane (1923)

And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,
His belly close to ground. I see the blade,
Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade

Poems from Cane (1923)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jean Toomer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.