Book: Harlem Shadows

• America

    Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
    And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,

  13 lines, 4 comments
• The Tropics in New York

  Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
  Cocoa in pods and allig

  12 lines
• On Broadway

  About me young careless feet
  Linger along the garish street;

  16 lines
• Harlem Shadows

  I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
  In Negro Harlem when night lets fall

  18 lines
• December, 1919

  Last night I heard your voice, mother,
  The words you sang to me

  12 lines
• Enslaved

  Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
  For weary centuries despised, oppressed,

  14 lines
• If We Must Die

    If we must die, let it not be like hogs
    Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

  13 lines
• Romance

  To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
  Scented and warm against my beating breast;

  16 lines, 1 comment
• After the Winter

  Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
  And against the morning's white

  16 lines
• Heritage

  Now the dead past seems vividly alive,
  And in this shining moment I can trace,

  16 lines
• Spring in New Hampshire

  Too green the springing April grass,
  Too blue the silver-speckled sky,

  12 lines
• To O.E.A.

  Your voice is the color of a robin's breast,
  And there's a sweet sob in it like rain--still rain in the night.

  15 lines
• Song of the Moon

  The moonlight breaks upon the city's domes,
  And falls along cemented steel and stone,

  16 lines, 3 comments
• White Houses

  Your door is shut against my tightened face,
  And I am sharp as steel with discontent;

  14 lines
• Baptism

  Into the furnace let me go alone;
  Stay you without in terror of the heat.

  14 lines
• Russian Cathedral

  Bow down my soul in worship very low
  And in the holy silences be lost.

  14 lines
• Flame-Heart

  So much have I forgotten in ten years,
  So much in ten brief years! I have forgot

  30 lines, 1 comment
• The City's Love

  For one brief golden moment rare like wine,
  The gracious city swept across the line;

  8 lines
• In Bondage

  I would be wandering in distant fields
  Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely,

  14 lines
• Africa

  The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light,
  The sciences were sucklings at thy breast;

  14 lines
• The Easter Flower

  Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
  My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,

  12 lines, 6 comments
• To One Coming North

  At first you'll joy to see the playful snow,
  Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,

  16 lines
• Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table

  Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad
  Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;

  16 lines
• Home Thoughts

  Oh something just now must be happening there!
  That suddenly and quiveringly here,

  16 lines
• The Barrier

  I must not gaze at them although
  Your eyes are dawning day;

  12 lines, 2 comments
• Adolescence

  There was a time when in late afternoon
  The four-o'clocks would fold up at day's close

  12 lines
• Homing Swallows

  Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main,
  O rain-birds racing merrily away

  12 lines
• North and South

  O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams!
  There time and life move lazily along.

  18 lines
• Wild May

  Aleta mentions in her tender letters,
  Among a chain of quaint and touching things,

  14 lines
• The Plateau

  It was the silver, heart-enveloping view
  Of the mysterious sea-line far away,

  16 lines
• The Wild Goat

  O you would clothe me in silken frocks
  And house me from the cold,

  8 lines
• The White City

  I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.
  Deep in the secret chambers of my heart

  14 lines
• The Spanish Needle

  Lovely dainty Spanish needle
  With your yellow flower and white,

  24 lines
• My Mother

  I
  Reg wished me to go with him to the field,

  30 lines
• When I Have Passed Away

  When I have passed away and am forgotten,
  And no one living can recall my face,

  12 lines, 6 comments
• I Shall Return

  I shall return again; I shall return
  To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes

  14 lines
• Morning Joy

  At night the wide and level stretch of wold,
  Which at high noon had basked in quiet gold,

  16 lines
• On a Primitive Canoe

  Here, passing lonely down this quiet lane,
  Before a mud-splashed window long I pause

  14 lines
• Winter in the Country

  Sweet life! how lovely to be here
  And feel the soft sea-laden breeze

  24 lines
• To Winter

  Stay, season of calm love and soulful snows!
  There is a subtle sweetness in the sun,

  14 lines
• On the Road

  Roar of the rushing train fearfully rocking,
  Impatient people jammed in line for food,

  14 lines
• The Harlem Dancer

  Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
  And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;

  14 lines, 3 comments
• Dawn in New York

  The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
  Out of the low still skies, over the hills,

  14 lines
• The Tired Worker

  O whisper, O my soul! The afternoon
  Is waning into evening, whisper soft!

  14 lines
• Outcast

  For the dim regions whence my fathers came
  My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.

  14 lines
• I Know My Soul

  I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
  And held it to the mirror of my eye,

  14 lines, 3 comments
• Birds of Prey

  Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,
  As they go lumbering across the sky,

  14 lines
• The Castaways

  The vivid grass with visible delight
  Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth,

  14 lines
• Exhortation: Summer 1919

  Through the pregnant universe rumbles life's terrific thunder,
  And Earth's bowels quake with terror; strange and terrible storms break,

  26 lines
• The Lynching

  His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.
  His father, by the cruelest way of pain,

  14 lines
• Subway Wind

  Far down, down through the city's great, gaunt gut,
  The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;

  16 lines
• The Night-Fire

  No engines shrieking rescue storm the night,
  And hose and hydrant cannot here avail;

  14 lines
• Poetry

  Sometimes I tremble like a storm-swept flower,
  And seek to hide my tortured soul from thee.

  14 lines
• To a Poet

  There is a lovely noise about your name,
  Above the shoutings of the city clear,

  12 lines
• 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.

  10 lines
• When Dawn Comes to the City

  The tired cars go grumbling by,
  The moaning, groaning cars,

  44 lines
• O Word I Love to Sing

  O word I love to sing! thou art too tender
  For all the passions agitating me;

  12 lines
• Absence

  Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,
  Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.

  8 lines
• Summer Morn in New Hampshire

  All yesterday it poured, and all night long
  I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat

  16 lines
• Rest in Peace

  No more for you the city's thorny ways,
  The ugly corners of the Negro belt;

  12 lines
• A Red Flower

  Your lips are like a southern lily red,
  Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,

  20 lines, 1 comment
• Courage

  O lonely heart so timid of approach,
  Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips

  16 lines
• Flower of Love

  The perfume of your body dulls my sense.
  I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone

  16 lines
• The Snow Fairy

  I
  Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,

  30 lines
• La Paloma in London

  About Soho we went before the light;
  We went, unresting six, craving new fun,

  14 lines
• A Memory of June

  When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
  With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,

  20 lines, 1 comment
• Flirtation

  UPON thy purple mat thy body bare
  Is fine and limber like a tender tree.

  8 lines
• Tormented

  I will not reason, wrestle here with you,
  Though you pursue and worry me about;

  12 lines
• Polarity

  Nay, why reproach each other, be unkind,
  For there's no plane on which we two may meet?

  8 lines
• One Year After

  I
  Not once in all our days of poignant love,

  30 lines
• French Leave

  No servile little fear shall daunt my will
  This morning. I have courage steeled to say

  20 lines
• Jasmines

  Your scent is in the room.
  Swiftly it overwhelms and conquers me!

  15 lines
• Commemoration

  When first your glory shone upon my face
  My body kindled to a mighty flame,

  16 lines
• Memorial

  Your body was a sacred cell always,
  A jewel that grew dull in garish light,

  24 lines
• Thirst

  My spirit wails for water, water now!
  My tongue is aching dry, my throat is hot

  14 lines
• Futility

  Oh, I have tried to laugh the pain away,
  Let new flames brush my love-springs like a feather.

  14 lines
• Through Agony

  I
  All night, through the eternity of night,

  30 lines

• By me, right now

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