Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
Baptism
Into the furnace let me go alone;Stay you without in terror of the heat.I will go naked in--for thus ''tis sweet--Into the weird depths of the..
© Claude McKay
A Prayer
'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.Mine eyes are open but they..
© Claude McKay
My Mother
IReg 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 yieldReluctantly, for she was..
© Claude McKay
The Harlem Dancer
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutesAnd watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;Her voice was like the sound of blended flutesBlown..
© Claude McKay
The Lynching
His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.His father, by the cruelest way of pain,Had bidden him to his bosom once again;The awful sin remained..
© Claude McKay
The Spanish Needle
Lovely dainty Spanish needleWith your yellow flower and white,Dew bedecked and softly sleeping,Do you think of me to-night?Shadowed by the spreading..
© Claude McKay
December, 1919
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..
© Claude McKay
Absence
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..
© Claude McKay
Exhortation: Summer 1919
Through the pregnant universe rumbles life's terrific thunder,And Earth's bowels quake with terror; strange and terrible storms..
© Claude McKay
The City's Love
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..
© Claude McKay
Song Of The Moon
The moonlight breaks upon the city's domes,And falls along cemented steel and stone,Upon the grayness of a million homes,Lugubrious in unchanging..
© Claude McKay
The Snow Fairy
IThroughout the afternoon I watched them there,Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,Whirling fantastic in the misty air,Contending fierce for..
© Claude McKay
Flower Of Love
The perfume of your body dulls my sense.I want nor wine nor weed; your breath aloneSuffices. In this moment rare and tenseI worship at your breast...
© Claude McKay
Harlem Shadows
I hear the halting footsteps of a lassIn Negro Harlem when the night lets fallIts veil. I see the shapes of girls who passTo bend and barter at..
© Claude McKay
Dawn In New York
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comesOut of the low still skies, over the hills,Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!The Dawn! My..
© Claude McKay
After The Winter
Some day, when trees have shed their leavesAnd against the morning's whiteThe shivering birds beneath the eavesHave sheltered for the night,We'll..
© Claude McKay
A Red Flower
Your lips are like a southern lily red,Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,In which the brown bee buries deep its head,When still the dawn's a..
© Claude McKay
Romance
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,Scented and warm against my beating breast;To whisper soft and quivering your name,And drink the..
© Claude McKay
Africa
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 nightThy slaves..
© Claude McKay
I Shall Return
I shall return again; I shall returnTo laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyesAt golden noon the forest fires burn,Wafting their blue-black smoke..
© Claude McKay
A Memory Of June
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,And mating thrushes ushering in her day,And Earth on tiptoe..
© Claude McKay
Flame-Heart
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..
© Claude McKay
Birds Of Prey
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..
© Claude McKay
Courage
O lonely heart so timid of approach,Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lipsTo the faint touch of tender finger tips:What is your word? What..
© Claude McKay
Enslaved
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..
© Claude McKay