Timothy Thomas Fortune
Timothy Thomas Fortune Poems
Hear the music of the pines—
Murmuring through the climbing vines,
Sighing through the tree tops high,
Floating upward to the sky,
...
On the hills of Hayti ring
Mandates of the Frenchman's king,
And the waves the tidings bring—
'Slavery to the slave!'
...
She was young; old Conroy took her,
Took her for herself alone,
For no wealth had she to offer,
Love for him she had not shown.
...
I.
O, Life of Dreams! O, Dreams of Life!
Ye mysteries are that breathe and thrill—
...
I.
Emanuel is dead! I shall not see again,
In all the earth, his manly form, or hear
The music of his voice, in soothing strain,
...
From hill to hill let Freedom ring!
Let tyrants bend the knee!
Why should the people have a king,
When every man a king should be!
...
Through all of life there runs a vein
Of mystery—of joy and pain,
Of hope and disappointment, and
Of hate and love. In every land,
...
We must grow old! The years go by,
Sometimes on wings they seem to fly;
But why such haste? We know not why!
We only know that we grow old!
...
There is rapture in the thought,
From thy words of constance caught,
That the world contains no prize
Like the peace thy love supplies.
...
You will go hence, sweetheart, and leave me,
And may forget
We ever met—
...
Why waste regrets on shattered hopes that beat
Themselves to death against a woman's breast?
Why seek in Arctic fields of snow and sleet
...
There was love, and there was beauty,
In the face upturned to me;
And her hair was long and golden,
Soft to touch and good to see;
...
Among the slaves Garcia did own
Was one in service aged grown,
The trusted mother of the place—
A part of Garcia's ancient race.
...
Don Garcia, with advancing age,
For he was living life's last page,
Became more headstrong and more vain,
If to that state he could attain;
...
Oh, take me again to the clime of my birth,
The dearest, the fairest, to me on the earth,
The clime where the roses are sweetest that bloom,
...
The man who finds a diamond in the clay
And knows its worth from common glass
That others trod upon or blindly pass
...
Before the Ark on Ararat a lodgment found,
The Elsmeres dwelt in clouds of doubt and fear;
And, still, when Time has reached its closing year,
...
The heart that is pining for love that is vain
Will outlive its sorrow and conquer its pain,
Will seek where is hidden the balsam 'gainst woe,
...
Have you e'er heard, at early morn,
The feathered poet sing his song,
Clear as a huntsman's clarion horn,
Yet softer, sweeter, and as strong?
...
Nor fleeting time, nor space, can change
The nature of the savage strange
Whose heart was touched long years ago
...
Timothy Thomas Fortune Biography
Timothy Thomas Fortune (October 3, 1856 – June 2, 1928) was an orator, civil rights leader, journalist, writer, editor and publisher. He was born during slavery in Marianna, Jackson County, Florida to Emanuel and Sarah Jane Fortune. Fortune started his education at Marianna's first school for African Americans after the Civil War. He worked both as a page in the state senate and apprenticed as printer at a Jacksonville newspaper during the time that his father, Emanuel, was a Reconstruction politician in Florida. At one time he also worked at the Marianna Courier and later the Jacksonville Daily-Times Union. These experiences would be the start of a career wherein he would go on to have his work published in over twenty books and articles and in more than three hundred editorials. Although he was mostly self-taught, in 1875 Fortune enrolled in Howard University to study law. He changed to journalism after two semesters before leaving school altogether to begin work, in 1876, at the People's Advocate, a newspaper in Washington, D.C. Fortune moved to New York City in 1881 and began a process whereby over the next two decades he would become known as editor and owner of a newspaper named first the Globe, then the Freeman, and finally the New York Age. Upon arrival in New York, Fortune began working as a printer. He became part owner of various publications, ultimately founding the New York Freeman in 1884. That same year he published a book Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South. Four years later The Freeman took the new name of "The New York Age" and set out to become "The Afro-American Journal of News and Opinion". In Chicago on January 25, 1890 Fortune co-founded the militant National Afro-American League to right wrongs against African Americans authorized by law and sanctioned or tolerated by public opinion. The league fell apart after four years. When it was revived in Rochester, New York on September 15, 1898, it had the new name of the "National Afro-American Council", with Fortune as President. Those two organizations would play a vital role in setting the stage for the Niagara Movement, NAACP and other civil rights organizations to follow. Fortune was also the leading advocate of using Afro-American to identify his people. Since they are "African in origin and American in birth", it was his argument that it most accurately defined them. With Fortune at the helm as co-owner with Emanuel Fortune, Jr. and Jerome B. Peterson, the New York Age became the most widely read of all Black newspapers. It stood at the forefront as a voice agitating against the evils of discrimination, lynching, mob violence, and disenfranchisement. Its popularity was due to Fortune's editorials which condemned all forms of discrimination and demanded full justice for all African Americans. Ida B. Wells's newspaper Memphis Free Speech and Headlight had its printing press destroyed and building burned as the result of an article published in it on May 25, 1892. Fortune then gave her a job and a new platform from which to detail and condemn lynching. His book The Kind of Education the Afro-American Most Needs was published in 1898. He published Dreams of Life: Miscellaneous Poems in 1905. After a nervous breakdown, Fortune sold the New York Age to Fred R. Moore in 1907, who continued publishing it until 1960. Fortune published another book The New York Negro in Journalism in 1915. Fortune went to work as an editor at the UNIA's house organ, the Negro World, in 1923. At its height the Negro World had circulation of over 200,000. With distribution throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and in Central America it may have been the most widely distributed newspaper in the world at that time. During his tenure at the Negro World, Fortune rubbed shoulders with such literary luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, W.A. Domingo, Hubert Harrison, and John E. Bruce, among others. Fortune moved to Red Bank, New Jersey in 1901, where he built his home, Maple Hill. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1976 and the New Jersey Register of Historic Places on August 16, 1979. Fortune died in 1928 at age 71 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.)
The Best Poem Of Timothy Thomas Fortune
Hear The Music Of The Pines
Hear the music of the pines—
Murmuring through the climbing vines,
Sighing through the tree tops high,
Floating upward to the sky,
Then descending where I lie—
Hear the music of the pines!
What sweet thoughts the music brings,
What new gladness from it springs—
As reclining, in a dream,
Watch I, listless, a sunbeam
Dancing on the silvery stream—
What sweet thoughts the music brings!
Hear the music of the pines!
How it 'round my fancy twines—
While fragrances of flowers fill
All the pulses of my will
As I, lingering, linger still—
Hear the music of the pines!
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4/23/2024 7:47:27 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Did Timothy Thomas Fortune write the poem " Bartow Black? " Because I'm looking for it so I can read it, but I don't see it anywhere. If anyone sees that poem on this site, then please comment so I can get it. I need it ASAP for school! If no one finds it, then it's okay, I'll keep looking and eventually get it! Thank you.