Joseph Seamon Cotter, Sr., was a pioneering African American poet whose life and work bridged the era of slavery (he was born in 1861) and the era in which modern African American literature flourished in the Harlem Renaissance and continued to grow in the decades ahead (he died in 1949, preceded in death by his son, Joseph Jr., also a poet). I enjoy Cotter Sr.'s poem about November very much and post it here as we find ourselves in that month again:
November
by Joseph Seamon Cotter, Sr.
Old November, sere and brown,
Clothes the country, haunts the town,
Sheds its cloak of withered leaves,
Brings its sighing, soughing breeze.
Prophet of the dying year,
Builder of its funeral bier,
Bring your message here to men;
Sound it forth that they may ken
What of Life and what of Death
Linger on your frosty breath.
Let men know to you are given
Days of thanks to God in heaven;
Thanks for things which we deem best,
Thanks, O God, for all the rest
That have taught us—(trouble, strife,
Bring through Death a larger life)—
Death of our base self and fear—
(Even as the dying year,
Though through cold and frost, shall bring
Forth a new and glorious spring)—
Shall shed over us the sway
Of a new and brighter day,
With Hope, Faith and Love alway.
The first four lines read so well that they are a poem within a poem.
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