English Poetry. James Weldon Johnson. The Suicide. Джеймс Уэлдон Джонсон.

James Weldon Johnson (Джеймс Уэлдон Джонсон)

The Suicide

For fifty years,
Cruel, insatiable Old World,
You have punched me over the heart
Till you made me cough blood.
The few paltry things I gathered
You snatched out of my hands.
You have knocked the cup from my thirsty lips.
You have laughed at my hunger of body and soul.

You look at me now and think,
"He is still strong,
There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there.
At the end of that time he will be old and broken,
Not able to strike back,
But cringing and crying for leave
To live a little longer."

Those twenty, pitiful, extra years
Would please you more than the fifty past,
Would they not, Old World?
Well, I hold them up before your greedy eyes,
And snatch them away as I laugh in your face,
Ha! Ha!
Bang--!

James Weldon Johnson’s other poems:

1. Down by the Carib Sea. 4. The Lottery Girl
2. The Temptress
3. The Color Sergeant
4. Mother Night
5. Down by the Carib Sea. 6. Sunset in the Tropics

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

Thomas MacDonagh (Томас Макдона) The Suicide (“Here when I have died”)

Edna Millay (Эдна Миллей) The Suicide (“”Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!”)

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