Countee Cullen, "On Going (For Willard Johnson)" (1925)
To hold my fancy long;
I'll bear a blossom with the spring,
Or be a blackbird's song,
I think that I shall fade with ease,
Melt into earth like snow,
Be food for hungry, growing trees,
Or help the lilies blow.
And if my love should lonely walk,
Quite of my nearness fain,
I may come back to her, and talk
In liquid words of rain.
Published in Color, 1925