Countee Cullen

To Certain Critics

Then call me traitor if you must, 
Shout reason and default! 
Say I betray a sacred trust 
Aching beyond this vault. 
I’ll bear your censure as your praise, 
For never shall the clan 
Confine my singing to its ways 
Beyond the ways of man. 

No racial option narrows grief, 
Pain is not patriot, 
And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf 
For all as lief as not. 
With blind sheep groping every hill, 
Searching an oriflamme, 
How shall the shpherd heart then thrill 
To only the darker lamb?