THE WILD GOAT O you would clothe me in silken frocks And house me from the cold, And bind with bright bands my glossy locks, And buy me chains of gold; And give me--meekly to do my will-- The hapless sons of men:-- But the wild goat bounding on the barren hill Droops in the grassy pen. HARLEM SHADOWS I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire’s call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest; Through the lone night until the last snow-flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast, The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street. Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street. THE WHITE CITY I will not toy with it nor bend an inch. Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part. My being would be a skeleton, a shell, If this dark Passion that fills my every mood, And makes my heaven in the white world’s hell, Did not forever feed me vital blood. I see the mighty city through a mist-- The strident trains that speed the goaded mass, The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed, The fortressed port through which the great ships pass, The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate, Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate. THE SPANISH NEEDLE Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night? Shadowed by the spreading mango, Nodding o’er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, Do you of the exile dream? Do you see me by the brook’s side Catching crayfish ’neath the stone, As you did the day you whispered: Leave the harmless dears alone? Do you see me in the meadow Coming from the woodland spring With a bamboo on my shoulder And a pail slung from a string? Do you see me all expectant Lying in an orange grove, While the swee-swees sing above me, Waiting for my elf-eyed love? Lovely dainty Spanish needle, Source to me of sweet delight, In your far-off sunny southland Do you dream of me to-night? MY MOTHER I