English Poetry. Claude McKay. America. Клод Маккей.

Claude McKay (Клод Маккей)

America

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Claude McKay’s other poems:

1. One Year After
2. Exhortation: Summer 1919
3. The Wild Goat
4. To a Poet
5. Birds of Prey

Poems of other poets with the same name (Стихотворения других поэтов с таким же названием):

Sydney Dobell (Сидней Добелл) America (“Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye”)

Bayard Taylor (Бейард Тейлор) America (“FORESEEN in the vision of sages”)

Henry Van Dyke (Генри Ван Дайк) America (“I love thine inland seas”)

Ella Wilcox (Элла Уилкокс) America (“I am the refuge of all the oppressed”)

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