Explore "The Color Sergeant" by James Weldon Johnson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(On an Incident at the Battle of San Juan Hill)
Under a burning tropic sun, / With comrades around him lying, / A trooper of the sable Tenth / Lay wounded, bleeding, dying.
First in the charge up the fort-crowned hill, / His company's guidon bearing, / He had rushed where the leaden hail fell fast, / Not death nor danger fearing.
He fell in the front where the fight grew fierce, / Still faithful in life's last labor;
Black though his skin, yet his heart as true / As the steel of his blood-stained saber.
And while the battle around him rolled, / Like the roar of a sullen breaker, / He closed his eyes on the bloody scene, / And presented arms to his Maker.
There he lay, without honor or rank, / But, still, in a grim-like beauty;
Despised of men for his humble race, / Yet true, in death, to his duty.