African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Claude McKay, "After the Winters" (1919)

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves,
   And against the morning's white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
   Have sheltered for the night,
We'n turn our faces southward, love,
   Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
   And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill
   Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
   And works the droning bee.
And we will build a lonely nest
   Beside an open glade,
And there forever will we rest,
   O love---O nut-brown maidI


Published in The Liberator, July 1919

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