Pedants and purists scornfully denounce the existence of anything like African Poetry, still less, anything like Ewe, Twi or Ga Poetry; but like Louis Pasteur in science, one can say ‘Poetry is of no country’. Whoever can speak, whoever can sing, whoever can dance, has the art of poetry. The fact that European poetry is established and advanced, is no guarantee that no other nation can write and publish her own; but there is one thing which must be avoided: the slavish imitation of European poetry and mechanical translation of it into an African language. Though the idea and pathos can be fairly closely represented, the metre and the rhythm can never be exactly copied. Here are beautiful verses from Gray's Elegy:

But this has not the same weight and grandeur as the English original of Thomas Gray, though the thought and feeling are almost identical. No, these Ewe translations of English poetry are not what we call Ewe Poetry. But this is in lines directly written or spoken by Ewe bards, men, women, and children, to agree with an Ewe metre and an Ewe rhythm. Listen to this lullaby:

No one can deny the genuineness of this Ewe poem and the magic spell it casts upon the worried child who sleeps calmly after a few rounds of its repetition. That is the effect of a true poem. It must excite a responsive feeling commensurate with the weight of its words, rhythm and metre.