Courage

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 would you broach?

Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind

To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,

Your guarded life too exquisitely frail

Against the daggers of my warring mind.

There is no part of the unyielding earth,

Even bare rocks where the eagles build their nest,

Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.

No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth.

But in the socket-chiseled teeth of strife,

That gleam in serried files in all the lands,

We may join hungry, understanding hands,

And drink our share of ardent love and life.

Claude McKay

Spring in New Hampshire (To J. L. J. F. E.)

TOO green the springing April grass,
Too blue the silver-speckled sky,
For me to linger here, alas,
While happy winds go laughing by,
Wasting the golden hours indoors,
Washing windows and scrubbing floors.
Too wonderful the April night,
Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,
The stars too gloriously bright,
For me to spend the evening hours,
When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

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 passion burning in your frame;

To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,

And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak

Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,

Melodious like notes of mating birds;

To hear you ask if I shall love always,

And myself answer: Til the end of days;

To feel your easeful sigh of happiness

When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;

It is so sweet. We know it is not true.

What matters it? The night must shed her dew.

We know it is not true, but it is sweet--

The poem with this music is complete.




Claude McKay

Summer Morn In New Hampshire

ALL yesterday it poured, and all night long
I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
Upon the grass like running children's feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
And nestled soft against the earth's wet breast.

But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
And I was blind with hunger for your love.

Claude McKay

Absence

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 like dawn-dews from the limb,
Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.
But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties
Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.
And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,
To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.

Claude McKay

image srce: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/media/photo/2002-10/5064017.jpg

Flower of Love

Flower of Love

THE perfume of your body dulls my sense.

I want wine nor weed; your breath alone

Suffices. In this moment rare and tense

I worship at your breast. The flower is blown,

The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,

The yellow heart is radiant now with dew

Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South;

O flower of love! I give myself to you.

Uncovered on your couch of figured green,

Here let us linger indivisible.

The portals of your sanctuary unseen

Receive my offering, yielding unto me.

Oh, with our love the night is warm and deep!

The air is sweet, my flower, and sweet the flute

Whose music lulls our burning brain to sleep,

While we lie loving, passionate and mute.

Claude McKay

I Remember This Feeling

The Tropics in New York


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.

by Claude McKay