Jean Tooomer the poet?

Question

What are your thoughts on Jean Toomers "Song of the Son"

Pour O pour that parting soul in song
O pour it in the sawdust glow of night
Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,
And let the valley carry it along.
And let the valley carry it along.
O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,
So scant of grass, so proligate of pines,
Now hust before an epoch's sun declines
Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee,
Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.
In time, for though the sun is setting on
A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set;
Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet
To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone,
Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.
O ***** slaves, dark purple ripened plums,
Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air,
Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare
One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes
an everlasting song, a singing tree,
Caroling softly souls of slavery,
What they were, and what they are to me,

Answer 1

It's a beautiful poem written in Toomer's distinctive style of allusive imagery. The mood of somewhat elevated melancholy is the most important part of it, but as far as meaning goes, it is discussing the end of slavery--its legacy, which in Toomer's view is partly positive (despite the pain it caused) because it has given the former slaves a deeper understanding of life, and more ability to appreciate it.