For Claude Mckay
Letter me with lines that I may distil
The sovereign sweetness of your flaming will
Teach me to sing of dusty flowers pure
And maiden's savaged innocence no more
To scorn, for you in all emotions soar
Though self-exiled from our tropical shore
Great poet, who brought Apollo's lyre here
O could you walk again your Harlem now
And find a lullaby for our dispear
And steal of words to edifice our vow
For we tingle with the doom we must hate
And all around us broken, tired of late
They sing self songs, until spring flies to ice
While in your rapture vice too would suffice.
[Claude Mckay was a Jamaican poet, pioneer of the Harlem Rennaissnce, who died in penury in Chicago, after turning from Communism and its lucre to the Catholic faith. His poem "if we must die"was used by Churchill to motivate the allies into war]
Copyright © David Smalling | Year Posted 2012
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