"The Song of the Smoke" by W.E.B. Dubois
I am the Smoke King
I am black!
I am swinging in the sky,
I am wringing worlds awry;
I am the thought of the throbbing mills,
I am the soul of the soul-toil kills,
Wraith of the ripple of trading rills;
Up I’m curling from the sod,
I am whirling home to God;
I am the Smoke King
I am black.
I am the Smoke King,
I am black!
I am wreathing broken hearts,
I am sheathing love’s light darts;
Inspiration of iron times
Wedding the toil of toiling climes,
Shedding the blood of bloodless crimes --
Lurid lowering ’mid the blue,
Torrid towering toward the true,
I am the Smoke King,
I am black.
I am the Smoke King,
I am black!
I am darkening with song,
I am hearkening to wrong!
I will be black as blackness can --
The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!
For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began.
I am daubing God in night,
I am swabbing Hell in white:
I am the Smoke King
I am black.
I am the Smoke King
I am black!
I am cursing ruddy morn,
I am hearsing hearts unborn:
Souls unto me are as stars in a night,
I whiten my black men — I blacken my white!
What’s the hue of a hide to a man in his might?
Hail! great, gritty, grimy hands --
Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!
I am the Smoke King
I am black.
Analysis of Poem
"The Song of the Smoke" centers on multiple themes, some include race and good and evil. In considering the first theme, the poem redefines racial assumptions currently held by both blacks and whites. The poem presents the image of a defiant black man, expressing his ideas clearly about the oppression of his race while simultaneously embracing his blackness. The theme of good and evil is reflected in the language of the poem. The word "black" has a dictionary reference to both African ancestry and the "mysteries of evil." On the other hand, the term "white" refers to Caucasian and "virginal purity." Du Bois examines the morality of both races, evaluating the stereotypical attitude
towards blacks and the attitude towards whites. He suggests that neither race possesses just one color. He also believes that like smoke, blacks have a great presence.
Bio of Author
He was born into a community of free blacks in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, and after his mother’s death, he was given a scholarship by the primarily white town although he had deeply desired to go to Harvard. While Du Bois had long believed that education and a sense of purpose were all that blacks needed to gain a place as Americans after having been freed from slavery in 1865, his education at Fisk was twofold. He also was made acutely aware of “the color line” in the South, and realized it would take far more than the higher education of African Americans to overcome this barrier.In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard. He turned to other forms of writing, including poetry, to present his theories and beliefs regarding “the problem of the color line,” which he considered the major problem of the twentieth century. He further took responsibility for bringing this message to the public by editing the magazines, all of which introduced the work of many new black writers, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Du Bois was one of the first African Americans to foster the idea of race-consciousness and of the African American as hero. His life’s work focused on the rebuttal of the claim that the African race engendered only slaves and savages unable to make contributions to civilization and American culture. “The Song of the Smoke” clearly stands as an affirmation for African Americans, but it is also a proclamation to America as a whole of the historical and economic significance of African Americans.