The Harlem Dancer – Claude McKay (1920) Applauding youths ...
The Harlem Dancer – Claude McKay (1920) Applauding youths ...
The Harlem Dancer – Claude McKay (1920) Applauding youths ...
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Harlem</strong> <strong>Dancer</strong> <strong>–</strong> <strong>Claude</strong> <strong>McKay</strong> (<strong>1920</strong>)<br />
<strong>Applauding</strong> <strong>youths</strong> laughed with young prostitutes<br />
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;<br />
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes<br />
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.<br />
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,<br />
<strong>The</strong> light gauze hanging loose about her form;<br />
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm<br />
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.<br />
Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls<br />
Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,<br />
<strong>The</strong> wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,<br />
Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;<br />
But looking at her falsely-smiling face,<br />
I knew her self was not in that strange place.<br />
<strong>The</strong> White City <strong>–</strong> <strong>Claude</strong> <strong>McKay</strong> (1921)<br />
I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.<br />
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart<br />
I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch<br />
I bear it nobly as I live my part.<br />
My being would be a skeleton, a shell,<br />
If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,<br />
And makes my heaven in the white world's hell,<br />
Did not forever feed me vital blood.<br />
I see the mighty city through a mist <strong>–</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> strident trains that speed the goaded mass,<br />
<strong>The</strong> poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,<br />
<strong>The</strong> fortressed port through which the great ships pass,<br />
<strong>The</strong> tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,<br />
Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lynching <strong>–</strong> <strong>Claude</strong> <strong>McKay</strong> (<strong>1920</strong>)<br />
His Spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.<br />
His father, by the cruelest way of pain,<br />
Had bidden him to his bosom once again;<br />
<strong>The</strong> awful sin remained still unforgiven.<br />
All night a bright and solitary star<br />
(Perchance the one that ever guided him,<br />
Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)<br />
Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.<br />
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view<br />
<strong>The</strong> ghastly body swaying in the sun.<br />
<strong>The</strong> women thronged to look, but never a one<br />
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue.<br />
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,<br />
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
From the Dark Tower <strong>–</strong> Countee Cullen (1924)<br />
We shall not always plant while others reap<br />
<strong>The</strong> golden increment of bursting fruit,<br />
Not always countenance, abject and mute,<br />
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;<br />
Not everlastingly while others sleep<br />
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,<br />
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;<br />
We were not made eternally to weep.<br />
<strong>The</strong> night whose sable breast relieves the stark,<br />
White stars is no less lovely being dark,<br />
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all<br />
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;<br />
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,<br />
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.<br />
Tableau <strong>–</strong> Countee Cullen (1924)<br />
Locked arm in arm they cross the way,<br />
<strong>The</strong> black boy and the white,<br />
<strong>The</strong> golden splendor of the day,<br />
<strong>The</strong> sable pride of night.<br />
From lowered blinds the dark folk stare,<br />
And here the fair folk talk,<br />
Indignant that these two should dare<br />
In unison to walk.<br />
Oblivious to look and work<br />
<strong>The</strong>y pass, and see no wonder<br />
That lightning brilliant as a sword<br />
Should blaze the path of thunder.
I, Too <strong>–</strong> Langston Hughes (1925)<br />
I, too, sing America.<br />
I am the darker brother.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y send me to eat in the kitchen<br />
When company comes,<br />
But I laugh,<br />
And eat well,<br />
And grow strong.<br />
Tomorrow,<br />
I'll be at the table<br />
When company comes.<br />
Nobody'll dare<br />
Say to me,<br />
"Eat in the kitchen,"<br />
<strong>The</strong>n.<br />
Besides,<br />
<strong>The</strong>y'll see how beautiful I am<br />
And be ashamed <strong>–</strong><br />
I, too, am America.<br />
<strong>The</strong> English <strong>–</strong> Langston Hughes (1930)<br />
In ships all over the world<br />
<strong>The</strong> English comb their hair for dinner,<br />
Stand watch on the bridge,<br />
Guide by strange stars,<br />
Take on passengers,<br />
Slip up hot rivers,<br />
Nose across lagoons,<br />
Bargain for trade,<br />
Buy, sell or rob,<br />
Load oil, load fruit,<br />
Load cocoa beans, load gold.<br />
In ships all over the world,<br />
Comb their hair for dinner.<br />
<strong>Harlem</strong> <strong>–</strong> Langston Hughes (1951)<br />
What happens to a dream deferred?<br />
Does it dry up<br />
like a raisin in the sun?<br />
Or fester like a sore—<br />
And then run?<br />
Does it stink like rotten meat?<br />
Or crust and sugar over—<br />
like a syrupy sweet?<br />
Maybe it just sags<br />
like a heavy load.<br />
Or does it explode?