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Claude McKay's Poetry, by title

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  • 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
  • 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
  • A Red Flower
    Your lips are like a southern lily red,
    Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,
    20 lines, 1 comment
  • Absence
    Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,
    Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.
    8 lines
  • Adolescence
    There was a time when in late afternoon
    The four-o'clocks would fold up at day's close
    12 lines
  • Africa
    The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light,
    The sciences were sucklings at thy breast;
    14 lines
  • After the Winter
    Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
    And against the morning's white
    16 lines
  • Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table
    Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad
    Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;
    16 lines
  • America
      Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
      And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
    13 lines, 4 comments
  • Baptism
    Into the furnace let me go alone;
    Stay you without in terror of the heat.
    14 lines
  • Birds of Prey
    Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,
    As they go lumbering across the sky,
    14 lines
  • Commemoration
    When first your glory shone upon my face
    My body kindled to a mighty flame,
    16 lines
  • Courage
    O lonely heart so timid of approach,
    Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
    16 lines
  • Dawn in New York
    The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
    Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
    14 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
  • 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
  • Flame-Heart
    So much have I forgotten in ten years,
    So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
    30 lines, 1 comment
  • Flirtation
    UPON thy purple mat thy body bare
    Is fine and limber like a tender tree.
    8 lines
  • Flower of Love
    The perfume of your body dulls my sense.
    I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone
    16 lines
  • French Leave
    No servile little fear shall daunt my will
    This morning. I have courage steeled to say
    20 lines
  • Futility
    Oh, I have tried to laugh the pain away,
    Let new flames brush my love-springs like a feather.
    14 lines
  • Harlem Shadows
    I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
    In Negro Harlem when night lets fall
    18 lines
  • Heritage
    Now the dead past seems vividly alive,
    And in this shining moment I can trace,
    16 lines
  • Home Thoughts
    Oh something just now must be happening there!
    That suddenly and quiveringly here,
    16 lines
  • Homing Swallows
    Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main,
    O rain-birds racing merrily away
    12 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
  • I Shall Return
    I shall return again; I shall return
    To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes
    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
  • In Bondage
    I would be wandering in distant fields
    Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely,
    14 lines
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