{ "id": "langston-hughes/the-south", "title": "The South", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "Langston Hughes", "poet_slug": "langston-hughes", "language": "en", "book": "The Weary Blues", "book_slug": "the-weary-blues", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 23, "container": null, "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1922, "venue": "The Crisis (June 1922)", "note": "Located in the bound Crisis volume 23–24 on disk (Archive.org crisis2324dubo): printed on page 72 as the first of “Two Poems” by Langston Hughes, with “My People”, in the issue whose masthead reads Vol. 24 No. 2, June 1922, Whole No. 140. Collected in The Weary Blues (1926), which remains the text this record carries.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/crisis2324dubo" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/langston-hughes_poetry", "file": "poetry.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Weary_Blues", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001021002", "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/langston-hughes-fine-clothes-to-the-jew-1927-full-text.1", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003138045", "https://archive.org/details/newnegrointerpre00unse", "http://childlit.unl.edu/topics/edi.brownies.html", "https://archive.org/details/the-brownies-book", "https://archive.org/details/crisis2324dubo", "https://archive.org/details/crisis2526dubo", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000502434", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1926-10_32_6", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-06_34_4", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-07_34_5", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-10_34_8", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-11_34_9", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1928-06_35_6", "https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_the-crisis_1930-07_37_7", "https://archive.org/details/hughes_ny_amsterdam_1923-04-25", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008956003", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006784879", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1925-03_3_27", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1925-06_3_30", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1926-05_4_41", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1926-10_4_46", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1927-03_5_3", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1927-06_5_6", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1927-12_5_12", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1930-06_8_6", "https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1930-12_8_12", "https://archive.org/details/sim_political-affairs_1925-03_4_5", "https://archive.org/details/sim_political-affairs_1925-04_4_6", "https://archive.org/details/sim_political-affairs_1925-07_4_9", "https://archive.org/details/langston_hughes_new_york_herald_tribune-1926-02-14", "https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1926-03-01-001-single", "https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1926-11-01-001-single", "https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1927-02-01-001-single", "https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1928-10-01-001-single", "https://archive.org/details/lincoln-university-yearbook-1928", "https://archive.org/details/sim_vanity-fair_1926-05_26_3", "https://books.google.com/books?id=2dsqAQAAIAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/palms_october_1926", "https://archive.org/details/langston_hughes_palms_november_1926", "https://archive.org/details/sim_poetry_1926-11_29_2", "https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v02n02-dec-1926-New-Masses", "https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v03n10-feb-1928-New-Masses", "https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v06n07-dec-1930-New-Masses", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000520354", "https://archive.org/details/ebonytopazcollec00unse", "https://archive.org/details/carolinamagazine19261927", "https://archive.org/details/harlem-1928-11", "https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes", "https://www.poetrynook.com/poet/langston-hughes", "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/langston-hughes-poems-published-in-the-crisis-1921-1926" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-12" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 28, "n_stanzas": 1, "n_parts": 0, "longest_line_chars": 35, "max_indent": 2 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "The lazy, laughing South", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With blood on its mouth.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The sunny-faced South,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Beast-strong,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "Idiot-brained.", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "The child-minded South", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Scratching in the dead fire’s ashes", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For a Negro’s bones.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cotton and the moon,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "Warmth, earth, warmth,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "The sky, the sun, the stars,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "The magnolia-scented South.", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "Beautiful, like a woman,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seductive as a dark-eyed whore,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Passionate, cruel,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "Honey-lipped, syphilitic⁠—", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "That is the South.", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "And I, who am black, would love her", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But she spits in my face.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I, who am black,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Would give her many rare gifts", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But she turns her back upon me.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So now I seek the North⁠—", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "The cold-faced North,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "For she, they say,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "Is a kinder mistress,", "indent": 2 }, { "text": "And in her house my children", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "May escape the spell of the South.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }