The Song of the Smoke

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.