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Sylvester’s Dying Bed

By Langston Hughes 1902–1967 Langston Hughes

I woke up this mornin’

’Bout half-past three.

All the womens in town

Was gathered round me.

Sweet gals was a-moanin’,

“Sylvester’s gonna die!”

And a hundred pretty mamas

Bowed their heads to cry.

I woke up little later

’Bout half-past fo’,

The doctor ‘n’ undertaker’s

Both at ma do’.

Black gals was a-beggin’,

“You can’t leave us here!”

Brown-skins cryin’, “Daddy!

Honey! Baby! Don’t go, dear!”

But I felt ma time’s a-comin’,

And I know’d I’s dyin’ fast.

I seed the River Jerden

A-creepin’ muddy past—

But I’s still Sweet Papa ’Vester,

Yes, sir! Long as life do last!

So I hollers, “Com’ere, babies,

Fo’ to love yo’ daddy right!”

And I reaches up to hug ’em—

When the Lawd put out the light.

Then everything was darkness

In a great ... big ... night.

Langston Hughes, “Sylvester’s Dying Bed” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted with the permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.

Source: Poetry (October 1931).

Biography

Langston Hughes was first recognized as an important literary figure during the 1920s, a period known as the "Harlem Renaissance" because of the number of emerging black writers. Du Bose Heyward wrote in the New York Herald Tribune in 1926: "Langston Hughes, although only twenty-four years old, is already conspicuous in the group of Negro intellectuals who are dignifying Harlem with a genuine art life. . . . It is, however, as . . .

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