Full text
Mother to Son
The Crisis, vol. 25, no. 2 (New York: NAACP, December 1922), p. 87 (Internet Archive page images of the University of Illinois copy, leaf n92)
Source
Source: The Crisis, vol. 25, no. 2 (New York: NAACP, December 1922), p. 87 (Internet Archive page images of the University of Illinois copy, leaf n92) Source URL: https://archive.org/details/crisis2526dubo/page/n92 Public domain basis: First published in The Crisis, December 1922; later collected in The Weary Blues (1926); public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Coverage: Complete: the twenty-line poem as first printed in The Crisis, December 1922, with its original spelling of the mother’s speech.
Mother to Son
Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare; But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark, Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back; Don’t you sit down on the steps, ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard; Don’t you fall now— For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.