Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool, Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool. Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from…
Posts published in “Claude McKay Poems”
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…
The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light, The sciences were sucklings at thy breast; When all the world was young in pregnant night Thy slaves toiled at…
Some day, when trees have shed their leavesAnd against the morning’s whiteThe shivering birds beneath the eavesHave sheltered for the night, We’ll turn our faces southward, love,Toward the summer isleWhere…
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,Stealing my breath of life, I will confessI love this cultured **** that tests my youth!Her vigor…
Into the furnace let me go alone;Stay you without in terror of the heat.I will go ***** in–for thus ”tis sweet–Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.I will not…
Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day, As they go lumbering across the sky, Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high, Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray.…
O lonely heart so timid of approach, Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips To the faint touch of tender finger tips: What is your word? What question…
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit…
Last night I heard your voice, mother,The words you sang to meWhen I, a little barefoot boy,Knelt down against your knee. And tears gushed from my heart, mother,And passed beyond…
Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,For weary centuries despised, oppressed,Enslaved and lynched, denied a human placeIn the great life line of the Christian West;And in the Black Land…
Through the pregnant universe rumbles life’s terrific thunder, And Earth’s bowels quake with terror; strange and terrible storms break, Lightning-torches flame the heavens, kindling souls of men, thereunder: Africa! long…
So much have I forgotten in ten years,So much in ten brief years! I have forgotWhat time the purple apples come to juice,And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.I have…
UPON thy purple mat thy body bare Is fine and limber like a tender tree. The motion of thy supple form is rare, Like a lithe panther lolling languidly, Toying…
The perfume of your body dulls my sense. I want nor wine nor ****; your breath alone Suffices. In this moment rare and tense I worship at your breast. The…
Oh, I have tried to laugh the pain away, Let new flames brush my love-springs like a feather. But the old fever seizes me to-day, As sickness grips a soul…
I hear the halting footsteps of a lassIn ***** Harlem when the night lets fallIts veil. I see the shapes of girls who passTo bend and barter at desire’s call.Ah,…
Now the dead past seems vividly alive,And in this shining moment I can trace,Down through the vista of the vanished years,Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face. And suddenly some…
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…
I plucked my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body…
I shall return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. I…
I would be wandering in distant fields Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely, And the old earth is kind, and ever yields Her goodly gifts to all her…
Your scent is in the room. Swiftly it overwhelms and conquers me! Jasmines, night jasmines, perfect of perfume, Heavy with dew before the dawn of day! Your face was in…
At night the wide and level stretch of wold, Which at high noon had basked in quiet gold, Far as the eye could see was ghostly white; Dark was the…
I Reg wished me to go with him to the field, I paused because I did not want to go; But in her quiet way she made me yield Reluctantly,…