African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology

Georgia Douglas Johnson, "When I Am Dead" (1918)

When I am dead, withhold, I pray, your blooming legacy;
Beneath the willows did I bide, and they should cover me;
I longed for light and fragrance, and I sought them far and near,
O, it would grieve me utterly, to find them on my bier!


Published in The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems (1918)
Also published in Caroling Dusk, 1927