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,                           5
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                                                   10
I am black.
I am the Smoke King
I am black!
I am wreathing broken hearts,
I am sheathing love’s light darts;                                  15
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,                                    20

I am the Smoke King
I am black.
I am the Smoke King
I am black!
I am darkening with song,                                            25
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,                                           30
I am swabbing Hell in white:
I am the Smoke King
I am black.

I am the Smoke King
I am black!                                                                35
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?               40
Hail! great, gritty, grimy hands—
Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands!
I am the Smoke King
I am black.