The Weary Blues

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night By the pale of the waning moon He played that sad, raggy tune Like a musical saw.

And he sang that song to me, And this is what he said:

With a cigar in his blackened hand, He swayed and he swung, He sung that soft and dusky song,

Of a night that was long, long ago. Singin’ it low down.

Tired blues.

Sometimes he would leap, sometimes he would fall, And I would see in his eyes, Looking through the night, The moonlight he couldn’t forget.

His song went on in the night— A voice so sweet or sad— That danced across the stars.

His voice escaped into the blue Echoing my heart’s weariness, Or huh! Painful pain— Across the breeze.

If no one can tell, If no one could know, Our fate lies far away— Far from shore.

• Langston Hughes