P.C. Home Page . Recent Additions Harlem Shadows The Poems of Claude McKay

My Mother                 I REG wished me to go with him to the field, I paused because I did not want to go; But in her quiet way she made me yield Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way, She pointed to the nail where hung my cap. Her eyes said: I shall last another day. But scarcely had we reached the distant place, When o'er the hills we heard a faint bell ringing; A boy came running up with frightened face; We knew the fatal news that he was bringing. I heard him listlessly, without a moan, Although the only one I loved was gone.                 II The dawn departs, the morning is begun, The trades come whispering from off the seas, The fields of corn are golden in the sun, The dark-brown tassels fluttering in the breeze; The bell is sounding and the children pass, Frog-leaping, skipping, shouting, laughing shrill, Down the red road, over the pasture-grass, Up to the school-house crumbling on the hill. The older folk are at their peaceful toil, Some pulling up the weeds, some plucking corn, And others breaking up the sun-baked soil. Float, faintly-scented breeze, at early morn Over the earth where mortals sow and reap-- Beneath its breast my mother lies asleep. Claude McKay In Bondage I WOULD be wandering in distant fields Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely, And the old earth is kind, and ever yields Her goodly gifts to all her children free; Where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding, And boys and girls have time and space for play Before they come to years of understanding-- Somewhere I would be singing, far away. For life is greater than the thousand wars Men wage for it in their insatiate lust, And will remain like the eternal stars, When all that shines to-day is drift and dust But I am bound with you in your mean graves, O black men, simple slaves of ruthless slaves. Claude McKay December, 1919 LAST night I heard your voice, mother,   The words you sang to me When I, a little barefoot boy,   Knelt down against your knee. And tears gushed from my heart, mother,   And passed beyond its wall, But though the fountain reached my throat   The drops refused to fall. 'Tis ten years since you died, mother,   Just ten dark years of pain, And oh, I only wish that I   Could weep just once again. Claude McKay Heritage NOW the dead past seems vividly alive,   And in this shining moment I can trace, Down through the vista of the vanished years,   Your faun-like form, your fond elusive race. And suddenly some secret spring's released,   And unawares a riddle is revealed, And I can read like large, black-lettered print,   What seemed before a thing forever sealed. I know the magic word, the graceful thought,   The song that fills me in my lucid hours, The spirit's wine that thrills my body through,   And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours. I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise,   I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true; But I can feel and I can write the word;   The best of me is but the least of you. Claude McKay When I Have Passed Away WHEN I have passed away and am forgotten,   And no one living can recall my face, When under alien sod my bones lie rotten   With not a tree or stone to mark the place; Perchance a pensive youth, with passion burning,   For olden verse that smacks of love and wine, The musty pages of old volumes turning,   May light upon a little song of mine, And he may softly hum the tune and wonder   Who wrote the verses in the long ago; Or he may sit him down awhile to ponder   Upon the simple words that touch him so. Claude McKay Enslaved OH when I think of my long-suffering race, For weary centuries despised, oppressed, Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place In the great life line of the Christian West; And in the Black Land disinherited, Robbed in the ancient country of its birth, My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead, For this my race that has no home on earth. Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry To the avenging angel to consume The white man's world of wonders utterly: Let it be swallowed up in earth's vast womb, Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke To liberate my people from its yoke! Claude McKay I Shall Return I SHALL return again; I shall return To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes At golden noon the forest fires burn, Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies. I shall return to loiter by the streams That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses, And realize once more my thousand dreams Of waters rushing down the mountain passes. I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife Of village dances, dear delicious tunes That stir the hidden depths of native life, Stray melodies of dim remembered runes. I shall return, I shall return again, To ease my mind of long, long years of pain. Claude McKay Morning Joy AT night the wide and level stretch of wold, Which at high noon had basked in quiet gold, Far as the eye could see was ghostly white; Dark was the night save for the snow's weird light. I drew the shades far down, crept into bed; Hearing the cold wind moaning overhead Through the sad pines, my soul, catching its pain, Went sorrowing with it across the plain. At dawn, behold! the pall of night was gone, Save where a few shrubs melancholy, lone, Detained a fragile shadow. Golden-lipped The laughing grasses heaven's sweet wine sipped. The sun rose smiling o'er the river's breast, And my soul, by his happy spirit blest, Soared like a bird to greet him in the sky, And drew out of his heart Eternity. Claude McKay Africa THE sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light, The sciences were sucklings at thy breast; When all the world was young in pregnant night Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best. Thou ancient treasure-land, thou modern prize, New peoples marvel at thy pyramids! The years roll on, thy sphinx of riddle eyes Watches the mad world with immobile lids. The Hebrews humbled them at Pharaoh's name. Cradle of Power! Yet all things were in vain! Honor and Glory, Arrogance and Fame! They went. The darkness swallowed thee again. Thou art the harlot, now thy time is done, Of all the mighty nations of the sun. Claude McKay On A Primitive Canoe HERE, passing lonely down this quiet lane, Before a mud-splashed window long I pause To gaze and gaze, while through my active brain Still thoughts are stirred to wakefulness; because Long, long ago in a dim unknown land, A massive forest-tree, ax-felled, adze-hewn, Was deftly done by cunning mortal hand Into a symbol of the tender moon. Why does it thrill more than the handsome boat That bore me o'er the wild Atlantic ways, And fill me with rare sense of things remote From this harsh land of fretful nights and days? I cannot answer but, whate'er it be, An old wine has intoxicated me. Claude McKay Winter in the Country SWEET life! how lovely to be here   And feel the soft sea-laden breeze Strike my flushed face, the spruce's fair   Free limbs to see, the lesser trees' Bare hands to touch, the sparrow's cheep   To heed, and watch his nimble flight Above the short brown grass asleep.   Love glorious in his friendly might, Music that every heart could bless,   And thoughts of life serene, divine, Beyond my power to express,   Crowd round this lifted heart of mine! But oh! to leave this paradise   For the city's dirty basement room, Where, beauty hidden from the eyes,   A table, bed, bureau, and broom In corner set, two crippled chairs   All covered up with dust and grim With hideousness and scars of years,   And gaslight burning weird and dim, Will welcome me . . . And yet, and yet   This very wind, the winter birds The glory of the soft sunset,   Come there to me in words. Claude McKay To Winter STAY, season of calm love and soulful snows! There is a subtle sweetness in the sun, The ripples on the stream's breast gaily run, The wind more boisterously by me blows, And each succeeding day now longer grows. The birds a gladder music have begun, The squirrel, full of mischief and of fun, From maples' topmost branch the brown twig throws. I read these pregnant signs, know what they mean: I know that thou art making ready to go. Oh stay! I fled a land where fields are green Always, and palms wave gently to and fro, And winds are balmy, blue brooks ever sheen, To ease my heart of its impassioned woe. 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 On The Road ROAR of the rushing train fearfully rocking, Impatient people jammed in line for food, The rasping noise of cars together knocking, And worried waiters, some in ugly mood, Crowding into the choking pantry hole To call out dishes for each angry glutton Exasperated grown beyond control, From waiting for his soup or fish or mutton. At last the station's reached, the engine stops; For bags and wraps the red-caps circle round; From off the step the passenger lightly hops, And seeks his cab or tram-car homeward bound; The waiters pass out weary, listless, glum, To spend their tips on harlots, cards and rum. Claude McKay The Harlem Dancer 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. She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, The light gauze hanging loose about her form; To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise, The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze; But looking at her falsely-smiling face, I knew her self was not in that strange place. Claude McKay Dawn in New York THE Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills. Almost the mighty city is asleep, No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet. But here and there a few cars groaning creep Along, above, and underneath the street, Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by, The women and the men of garish nights, Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry, Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights. The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York. And I go darkly-rebel to my work. Claude McKay The Tired Worker O WHISPER, O my soul! The afternoon Is waning into evening, whisper soft! Peace, O my rebel heart! for soon the moon From out its misty veil will swing aloft! Be patient, weary body, soon the night Will wrap thee gently in her sable sheet, And with a leaden sigh thou wilt invite To rest thy tired hands and aching feet. The wretched day was theirs, the night is mine; Come tender sleep, and fold me to thy breast. But what steals out the gray clouds like red wine? O dawn! O dreaded dawn! O let me rest Weary my veins, my brain, my life! Have pity! No! Once again the harsh, the ugly city. Claude McKay Outcast FOR the dim regions whence my fathers came My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs. Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame; My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs. I would go back to darkness and to peace, But the great western world holds me in fee, And I may never hope for full release While to its alien gods I bend my knee. Something in me is lost, forever lost, Some vital thing has gone out of my heart, And I must walk the way of life a ghost Among the sons of earth, a thing apart; For I was born, far from my native clime, Under the white man's menace, out of time. Cluade McKay I Know My Soul I PLUCKED my soul out of its secret place, And held it to the mirror of my eye, To see it like a star against the sky, A twitching body quivering in space, A spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored it to determine why This awful key to my infinity Conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace. And if the sign may not be fully read, If I can comprehend but not control, I need not gloom my days with futile dread, Because I see a part and not the whole. Contemplating the strange, I'm comforted By this narcotic thought: I know my soul. Claude McKay Birds of Prey THEIR shadow dims the sunshine of our day, As they go lumbering across the sky, Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high, Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray. They scare the singing birds of earth away As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly, Watching the toilers with malignant eye, From their exclusive haven--birds of prey. They swoop down for the spoil in certain might, And fasten in our bleeding flesh their claws. They beat us to surrender weak with fright, And tugging and tearing without let or pause, They flap their hideous wings in grim delight, And stuff our gory hearts into their maws. Claude McKay B A C K to the Contents of Harlem Shadows