The Visionary

HE had dignity and charm and culture, too.

Bright eyes that shone fanatically bine.

A mouth severe, when in repose a line, But such a smile that made his friends incline The ear, if not the heart, to every word Designed to picture what he saw or heard Upon a little stool at dawn and night In prayer beneath a tract “I am the Light.”

From all the doors of his pure mind A voice, his own, cried out to find How he the savage heart could know And speed the work that went so slow.

When guided by a white-man’s ways So full of crowded hours and days.

The secret was he must think black.

And leave his own well-ordered track.

With dignity and charm all fled away.

He trod the new road, tireless, day by day.

And passed, an exile in an unknown land.

Beyond the aid of white-man’s voice or hand.

And when him tortured soul cried out at last.

He turned, alas, too late, and stood aghast To find noi path or highway leading back From that dark valley known as Thinking Black.

Richard Humphries.

Papua.