All Poems

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The Night-Fire

© Claude McKay

No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;
The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light,
And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale.

You

© Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

SLANTING rain and a sky of gray,
Drifting mist and a wind astray,
The leaden end of a leaden day
And you--away!

The Lynching

© Claude McKay

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 still unforgiven.

The Harlem Dancer

© Claude McKay

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.

The Easter Flower

© Claude McKay

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;

Of The Mole In The Ground

© John Bunyan

The mole's a creature very smooth and slick,

She digs i' th' dirt, but 'twill not on her stick;

The Castaways

© Claude McKay

The vivid grass with visible delight
Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth,
The butterflies, and sparrows in brief flight
Chirping and dancing for the season's birth,

When Someone Says:

© Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin

When someone says: "Alexandria,"
I see the white walls of a house,
a small garden row of gillyflowers,
an autumn evening's pale sunlight
and hear the music of distant flutes.

The Flower

© Alfred Tennyson

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

Summer Morn in New Hampshire

© Claude McKay

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.

Elegy IX

© Henry James Pye

From the clear stream that o'er her grotto flows
The silver-slipper'd Avon slowly rose,
And pensive on her crystal urn reclin'd,
Pour'd forth in notes like these her anxious mind.

Subway Wind

© Claude McKay

Far down, down through the city's great, gaunt gut,
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd's breath cut,
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.

Pan at Lane Cove

© Kenneth Slessor

SCALY with poison, bright with flame,
Great fungi steam beside the gate,
Run tentacles through flagstone cracks,
Or claw beyond, where meditate

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.

Song. "Pass thy hand through my hair, love"

Pass thy hand through my hair, love;

One little year ago,

Song of the Moon

© Claude McKay

There is no magic from your presence here,
Ho, moon, sad moon, tuck up your trailing robe,
Whose silver seems antique and so severe
Against the glow of one electric globe.

Selfish

I am selfish in my wishin' every sort o' joy for you;
I am selfish when I tell you that I'm wishin' skies o' blue
Bending o'er you every minute, and a pocketful of gold,
An' as much of love an' gladness as a human heart can hold.
Coz I know beyond all question that if such a thing could be
As you cornerin' life's riches you would share 'em all with me.

Russian Cathedral

© Claude McKay

Bow down my soul and let the wondrous light
Of beauty bathe thee from her lofty throne,
Bow down before the wonder of man's might.
Bow down in worship, humble and alone;
Bow lowly down before the sacred sight
Of man's divinity alive in stone.

Romance

© Claude McKay

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 speakLove words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,