Langston Hughes

Song for a Dark Girl

Song for a Dark Girl - meaning Summary

Love and Lynching in Dixie

The poem presents a Black woman’s grief and rage after her young lover is lynched in the American South. Repeating the regional refrain, the speaker confronts the brutality of racial violence and the inadequacy of prayer and Christian language in the face of such cruelty. It compresses personal loss and social horror into a stark, mournful address that forces readers to reckon with injustice and faith’s limits.

Read Complete Analyses

Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover To a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus What was the use of prayer. Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) Love is a naked shadow On a gnarled and naked tree.

default user
PoetryVerse just now

Feel free to be first to leave comment.

8/2200 - 0