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Kavita Kosh से
'''मूल अँग्रेज़ी से अनुवाद : शशिप्रकाश'''
'''लीजिए, अब मूल अँग्रेज़ी में यह कविता पढ़िए'''
So Quietly
News item from The New York Times on the lynching of a Negro at Smithville, Ga., December 21, 1919: “The train was bored so quietly…that members of the train crew did not know that the mob had seized the Negro until informed by the prisoner’s guard after the train has left the town… A coroner’s inquest held immediately returned the verdict that West came to his death at the hands of unidentified men.”
So quietly they stole upon their prey
And dragged him out to death, so without flaw
Their black design, that they to whom the law
Gave him in keeping, in the broad, bright day,
Were not aware when he was snatched away;
And when the people, with a shrinking awe,
The horror of that mangled body saw,
“By unknown hands!” was all they could say.
So, too, my country, stealeth on apace
The soul-bright of a nation. Not with drums
Or trumpet blare is that corruption sown,
But quietly — now in the open face
Of day, now in the dark — when it comes.
Leslie Pinckney Hill
</poem>
