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by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880 - 1966)

Common Dust
Language: English 
And who shall separate the dust
What later we shall be:
Whose keen discerning eye will scan
And solve the mystery?

The high, the low, the rich, the poor,
The black, the white, the red,
And all the chromatic between,
Of whom shall it be said:

Here lies the dust of Africa;
Here are the sons of Rome;
Here lies the one unlabeled,
The world at large his home!

Can one then separate the dust?
Will mankind lie apart,
When life has settled back again
The same as from the start?

Text Authorship:

  • by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880 - 1966) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Trevor Weston (b. 1967), "Common Dust", 2001 [baritone and piano], from Evening Songs, no. 4. [ sung text not verified ]

Research team for this page: Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Trevor Weston

This text was added to the website: 2018-05-14
Line count: 16
Word count: 91

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