Let Me Not Hate

by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Let me not hate, although the bruising world decries
       my peace,
Gives me no quarter, hounds me while I sleep;
Would snuff the candles of my soul and sear my inmost
       dreamings.

Let me not hate, though girt by vipers, green and hissing
       through the dark;
I fain must love. God help me keep the altar-gleams
       that flicker wearily, anon,
On down the world’s grim night!

_{From Bronze (1922), by Georgia Douglas Johnson.}