African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Countee Cullen, "Copper Sun" (1927) (full text)

COPPER SUN

By

Countee Cullen

Author of "Color" and "The Ballad of the Brown Girl"

WITH DECORATIONS BY
CHARLES CULLEN

Harper & Brothers, Publishers
New York and London
Mcmxxvii


COPPER SUN


* * *
Copyright, 1927, by Harper & Brothers

Printed in the United States of America

* * *

To the Not Impossible Her

Acknowledgments



TO

Harper's Magazine
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life
Palms
The Crisis
Fire
Folio
Yule Tide Anthology
The Measure
Vanity Fair
Books of The New York Herald-Tribune
Foot Prints
The Conning Tower of the New York World
The Nation
The Bookman
The Carolina Magazine

acknowledgment is hereby made for permission to reprint certain poems that first appeared in these periodicals.





Contents



I. COLOR

From the dark tower 
Threnody for a brown girl 
Confession 
Uncle Jim 
Colored Blues Singer 
Colors 
The Litany of the Dark People 

II. THE DEEP IN LOVE

pity the deep in love 
one day we played a game 
timid lover 
nocturne 
words to my love 
en passant 
variations on a theme 
a song of sour grapes 
in memoriam 
lament 
if love be staunch 
the spark 
song of the rejected lover 
to one who was cruel 
sonnet to a scornful lady 
the love tree 


III. AT CAMBRIDGE

the wind bloweth where it listeth 
thoughts in a zoo 
two thoughts of death 
the poet puts his heart to school 
love’s way 
portrait of a lover 
an old story 
to lovers of earth: fair warning 

IV. VARIA

in spite of death 
cor cordium 
lines to my father 
protest 
an epitaph 
scandal and gossip 
youth sings a song of rosebuds 
hunger 
lines to our elders 
the poet 
more than a fool’s song 
and when i think 
advice to a beauty 
ultimatum 
lines written in jerusalem
on the mediterranean sea 
millennial 
at the wailing wall in jerusalem 
to endymion 
epilogue 

V. JUVENILIA

Open door 
Disenchantment 
Leaves 
Song 
The Touch 
A poem once significant, now happily not 
Under the mistletoe 



 

This page has paths: