Saturday, December 26, 2009

Fwd: Langston Hughes - Merry Christmas

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Collins <collindave@hughes.net>
Date: Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Subject: Langston Hughes - Merry Christmas
To: Dave Collins <collindave@hughes.net>


Merry Christmas

"Merry Christmas": Published in New Masses (Dec. 1930), p. 4.
 
        Merry Christmas, China,
From the gun-boats in the river,
Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts,
And peace on earth forever.

Merry Christmas, India,
To Gandhi in his cell,
From righteous Christian England,
Ring out, bright Christmas bell!

Ring Merry Christmas, Africa,
From Cairo to the Cape!
Ring Hallehuiah! Praise the Lord!
(For murder and for rape.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Haiti!
(And drown the voodoo drums—
We'll rob you to the Christian hymns
Until the next Christ comes.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Cuba!
(While Yankee domination
Keeps a nice fat president
In a little half-starved nation.)

And to you down-and-outers,
("Due to economic laws")
Oh, eat, drink, and be merry
With a bread-line Santa Claus—

While all the world hails Christmas,
While all the church bells sway!
While, better still, the Christian guns
Proclaim this joyous day!

While holy steel that makes us strong
Spits forth a mighty Yuletide song:
SHOOT Merry Christmas everywhere!
Let Merry Christmas GAS the air!



--
    The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner
Visit my bloghttp://wwwlearn-past.blogspot.com/

2 comments:

Draikoh said...

I like the anti-Christmas sentiment, but the negative tone is a little bit of a downer for me. What is the way it should be?

The Past Is Not Dead said...

I agree that the Xmas poem is negative. It reflects the mood of those who participated in WWI.