North and South
O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams! There time and life move lazily along.
There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song,
Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day, Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies,
And swarthy children in the fields at play, Look upward laughing at the smiling skies.
A breath of idleness is in the air That casts a subtle spell upon all things,
And love and mating-time are everywhere, And wonder to life's commonplaces clings.
The fluttering humming-bid darts through the trees And dips his long beak in the big bell-flowers,
The leisured buzzard floats upon the breeze, Riding a crescent cloud for endless hours,
The sea beats softly on the emerald strands— O sweet for quiet dreams are tropic lands!
Claude McKay
Other author posts
Rest in Peace
No more for you the city's thorny ways, The ugly corners of the Negro belt; The miseries and pains of these harsh days By you will never, never again be felt No more, if still you wander, will you meet With nights of unabating bitterness...
When I Have Passed Away
When I have passed away and am forgotten, And no one living can recall my face, When under alien sod my bones lie rotten With not a tree or stone to mark the place; Perchance a pensive youth, with passion burning, For olden verse that sm...
The Castaways
The vivid grass with visible delight Springing triumphant from the pregnant earth, The butterflies, and sparrows in brief flight Chirping and dancing for the season's birth, The dandelions and rare daffodils That touch the deep-stirred h...
To OEA
Your voice is the color of a robin's breast, And there's a sweet sob in it like rain—still rain in the night Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest, The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange
