Robert Hayden(1913–1980)
Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday
Lord's lost Him His mockingbird,
His fancy warbler;
Satan sweet-talked her,
four bullets hushed her.
W h o would have thought
she'd end that way
Four bullets hushed her. And the world a-clang with evil.
Who's going to make old hardened sinner m e n tremble now
and the righteous rock
Oh who and oh who will sing Jesus down
to help with struggling and doing without and being colored
all through blue Monday
Till way next Sunday
All those angels
in their cretonne1 clouds and finery
the true believer saw
when she rared back her head and sang,
all those angels are surely weeping.
W h o would have thought
she'd end that way
Four holes in her heart. The gold works wrecked.
But she looks so natural in her big bronze coffin
among the Broken Hearts and Gates-Ajar,
it's as if any m o m e n t she'd lift her head
from its pillow of chill gardenias
and turn this quiet into shouting Sunday
and make folks forget what she did on Monday.
O h , Satan sweet-talked her,
and four bullets hushed her.
Lord's lost Him His diva,
His fancy warbler's gone.
W h o would have thought
who would have thought she'd end that way