- FAR from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
- My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
- Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
- Soft-scented in the air for yards around;
- Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!
- Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,
- It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief
- In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;
- And many thought it was a sacred sign,
- And some called it the resurrection flower;
- And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,
- Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.
- Claude McKay

- AT first you'll joy to see the playful snow,
- Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,
- Or waters of the hills that softly flow
- Gracefully falling down a shining stair.
- And when the fields and streets are covered white
- And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
- Or underneath a spell of heat and light
- The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,
- Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song
- Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry,
- And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong,
- Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky.
- But oh! more than the changeless southern isles,
- When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm,
- You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles
- By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.
- Claude McKay

- ALTHOUGH she feeds me bread of bitterness,
- And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
- Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
- I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
- Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
- Giving me strength erect against her hate.
- Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
- Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
- I stand within her walls with not a shred
- Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
- Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
- And see her might and granite wonders there,
- Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
- Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
- Claude McKay

- ALFONSO is a handsome bronze-hued lad
- Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;
- His moods are storms that frighten and make glad,
- His eyes were made to capture women's hearts.
- Down in the glory-hole Alfonso sings
- An olden song of wine and clinking glasses
- And riotous rakes; magnificently flings
- Gay kisses to imaginary lasses.
- Alfonso's voice of mellow music thrills
- Our swaying forms and steals our hearts with joy;
- And when he soars, his fine falsetto trills
- Are rarest notes of gold without alloy.
- But, O Alfonso! wherefore do you sing
- Dream-songs of carefree men and ancient places?
- Soon we shall be beset by clamouring
- Of hungry and importunate palefaces.
- Claude McKay

- BANANAS ripe and green, and ginger-root,
- Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
- And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
- Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,
- Set in the window, bringing memories
- Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
- And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
- In benediction over nun-like hills.
- My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;
- A wave of longing through my body swept,
- And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,
- I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
- Claude McKay

- SO much have I forgotten in ten years,
- So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
- What time the purple apples come to juice,
- And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
- I have forgot the special, startling season
- Of the pimento's flowering and fruiting;
- What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
- And fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
- I have forgotten much, but still remember
- The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
- I still recall the honey-fever grass,
- But cannot recollect the high days when
- We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
- To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
- I often try to think in what sweet month
- The languid painted ladies used to dapple
- The yellow by-road mazing from the main,
- Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple.
- I have forgotten--strange--but quite remember
- The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
- What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year
- We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
- What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
- Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
- Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days
- Even the sacred moments when we played,
- All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
- At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade.
- We were so happy, happy, I remember,
- Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December.
- Claude McKay

- OH something just now must be happening there!
- That suddenly and quiveringly here,
- Amid the city's noises, I must think
- Of mangoes leaning o'er the river's brink,
- And dexterous Davie climbing high above,
- The gold fruits ebon-speckled to remove,
- And toss them quickly in the tangled mass
- Of wis-wis twisted round the guinea grass;
- And Cyril coming through the bramble-track
- A prize bunch of bananas on his back;
- And Georgie--none could ever dive like him--
- Throwing his scanty clothes off for a swim;
- And schoolboys, from Bridge-tunnel going home,
- Watching the waters downward dash and foam.
- This is no daytime dream, there's something in it,
- Oh something's happening there this very minute!
- Claude McKay

- ABOUT me young and careless feet
- Linger along the garish street;
- Above, a hundred shouting signs
- Shed down their bright fantastic glow
- Upon the merry crowd and lines
- Of moving carriages below.
- Oh wonderful is Broadway--only
- My heart, my heart is lonely.
- Desire naked, linked with Passion,
- Goes strutting by in brazen fashion;
- From playhouse, cabaret and inn
- The rainbow lights of Broadway blaze
- All gay without, all glad within;
- As in a dream I stand and gaze
- At Broadway, shining Broadway--only
- My heart, my heart is lonely.
- Claude McKay

- I MUST not gaze at them although
- Your eyes are dawning day;
- I must not watch you as you go
- Your sun-illumined way;
- I hear but I must never heed
- The fascinating note,
- Which, fluting like a river reed,
- Comes from your trembing throat;
- I must not see upon your face
- Love's softly glowing spark;
- For there's the barrier of race,
- You're fair and I am dark.
- Claude McKay

- THERE was a time when in late afternoon
- The four-o'clocks would fold up at day's close
- Pink-white in prayer, and 'neath the floating moon
- I lay with them in calm and sweet repose.
- And in the open spaces I could sleep,
- Half-naked to the shining worlds above;
- Peace came with sleep and sleep was long and deep,
- Gained without effort, sweet like early love.
- But now no balm--nor drug nor weed nor wine--
- Can bring true rest to cool my body's fever,
- Nor sweeten in my mouth the acid brine,
- That salts my choicest drink and will forever.
- Claude McKay

- SWIFT swallows sailing from the Spanish main,
- O rain-birds racing merrily away
- From hill-tops parched with heat and sultry plain
- Of wilting plants and fainting flowers, say--
- When at the noon-hour from the chapel school
- The children dash and scamper down the dale,
- Scornful of teacher's rod and binding rule
- Forever broken and without avail,
- Do they still stop beneath the giant tree
- To gather locusts in their childish greed,
- And chuckle when they break the pods to see
- The golden powder clustered round the seed?
- Claude McKay

- FOR one brief golden moment rare like wine,
- The gracious city swept across the line;
- Oblivious of the color of my skin,
- Forgetting that I was an alien guest,
- She bent to me, my hostile heart to win,
- Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast;
- The great, proud city, seized with a strange love,
- Bowed down for one flame hour my pride to prove.
- Claude McKay

- O SWEET are tropic lands for waking dreams!
- There time and life move lazily along.
- There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams
- Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song,
- Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day,
- Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies,
- And swarthy children in the fields at play,
- Look upward laughing at the smiling skies.
- A breath of idleness is in the air
- That casts a subtle spell upon all things,
- And love and mating-time are everywhere,
- And wonder to life's commonplaces clings.
- The fluttering humming-bid darts through the trees
- And dips his long beak in the big bell-flowers,
- The leisured buzzard floats upon the breeze,
- Riding a crescent cloud for endless hours,
- The sea beats softly on the emerald strands--
- O sweet for quiet dreams are tropic lands!
- Claude McKay

- ALETA mentions in her tender letters,
- Among a chain of quaint and touching things,
- That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters,
- And given to strange deeds and mutterings.
- No longer without trace or thought of fear,
- Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan;
- But have become the victim of grim care,
- With three brown beauties to support alone.
- But none the less will you be in my mind,
- Wild May that cantered by the risky ways,
- With showy head-cloth flirting in the wind,
- From market in the glad December days;
- Wild May of whom even other girls could rave
- Before sex tamed your spirit, made you slave.
- Claude McKay

- IT was the silver, heart-enveloping view
- Of the mysterious sea-line far away,
- Seen only on a gleaming gold-white day,
- That made it dear and beautiful to you.
- And Laura loved it for the little hill,
- Where the quartz sparkled fire, barren and dun,
- Whence in the shadow of the dying sun,
- She contemplated Hallow's wooden mill.
- While Danny liked the sheltering high grass,
- In which he lay upon a clear dry night,
- To hear and see, screened skilfully from sight,
- The happy lovers of the valley pass.
- But oh! I loved it for the big round moon
- That swung out of the clouds and swooned aloft,
- Burning with passion, gloriously soft,
- Lighting the purple flowers of fragrant June.
- Claude McKay

- SOME day, when trees have shed their leaves
- And against the morning's white
- The shivering birds beneath the eaves
- Have sheltered for the night,
- We'll turn our faces southward, love,
- Toward the summer isle
- Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
- And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
- And we will seek the quiet hill
- Where towers the cotton tree,
- And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
- And works the droning bee.
- And we will build a cottage there
- Beside an open glade,
- With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
- And ferns that never fade.
- Claude McKay

- O YOU would clothe me in silken frocks
- And house me from the cold,
- And bind with bright bands my glossy locks,
- And buy me chains of gold;
- And give me--meekly to do my will--
- The hapless sons of men:--
- But the wild goat bounding on the barren hill
- Droops in the grassy pen.
- Claude McKay

- I HEAR the halting footsteps of a lass
- In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
- Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass
- To bend and barter at desire's call.
- Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet
- Go prowling through the night from street to street!
- Through the long night until the silver break
- Of day the little gray feet know no rest;
- Through the lone night until the last snow-flake
- Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast,
- The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet
- Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.
- Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way
- Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace,
- Has pushed the timid little feet of clay,
- The sacred brown feet of my fallen race!
- Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet
- In Harlem wandering from street to street.
- Claude McKay

- I WILL not toy with it nor bend an inch.
- Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
- I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch
- I bear it nobly as I live my part.
- My being would be a skeleton, a shell,
- If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,
- And makes my heaven in the white world's hell,
- Did not forever feed me vital blood.
- I see the mighty city through a mist--
- The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,
- The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,
- The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,
- The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,
- Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.
- Claude McKay

- LOVELY dainty Spanish needle
- With your yellow flower and white,
- Dew bedecked and softly sleeping,
- Do you think of me to-night?
- Shadowed by the spreading mango,
- Nodding o'er the rippling stream,
- Tell me, dear plant of my childhood,
- Do you of the exile dream?
- Do you see me by the brook's side
- Catching crayfish 'neath the stone,
- As you did the day you whispered:
- Leave the harmless dears alone?
- Do you see me in the meadow
- Coming from the woodland spring
- With a bamboo on my shoulder
- And a pail slung from a string?
- Do you see me all expectant
- Lying in an orange grove,
- While the swee-swees sing above me,
- Waiting for my elf-eyed love?
- Lovely dainty Spanish needle,
- Source to me of sweet delight,
- In your far-off sunny southland
- Do you dream of me to-night?
- Claude McKay
B A C K
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