AFTER THE WINTER

by: Claude McKay (1890-1948)

      OME 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'll 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 maid!

"After the Winter" is reprinted from The Book of American Negro Poetry. Ed. James Weldon Johnson. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922.

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