Poems by Claude McKay

I Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,
Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky, ...

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

Your body was a sacred cell always,
A jewel that grew dull in garish light,
An opal which ben...

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

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

About me young and careless feet
Linger along the garish street;
Above, a hundred shouting si...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,
Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines a...

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

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