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Harlem Shadows

by Claude McKay

3 of 76 · Contents · Download EPUB

The Easter Flower

Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
  My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
  Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!
  Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,
It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief
  In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,
  And some called it the resurrection flower;
And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,
  Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.

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