African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Arna Bontemps, "Gethsemane" (1927)

GETHSEMANE

All that night I walked alone and wept.
I tore a rose and dropped it on the ground.
My heart was lead; all that night I kept
Listening to hear a dreadful sound.
A tree bent down and dew dripped from its hair.
The earth was warm; dawn came solemnly.
I stretched full-length upon the grass and there
I said your name but silence answered me.


Published in Caroling Dusk1927

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