I How many fires have I started in my blood With scraps of pride and independence of the day, That have burned out and left me cold. And left your face upon the ash! I can not go by water or through wood, In peopled towns or any place at all, But that my insufficient self is lost, And I turn back defeated to your arms. II Though all my veins with yours should mingle, (This is my desire, secret and denied!) And those red rivers through you flow, You would become like one of Eva's children, I would be nothing then, I know! III I am afraid of you: You are the flesh that has no strength, yet wins Its way against the heavy-muscled wise, When the guards sink down beside their spears, Drunk with magnanimous wines. IV You, inscrutable and alien, Are like a phantom girl within a dream Where earth and stars are mixed with lips and eyes, To make an unfamiliar Paradise. V I must escape your tenderness and tears, Or else my world of men becomes a smoky dust. And all the efforts of this brain and hand Drift like a haze above the ruined land, Forever through the undistinguished years. VI I am afraid, yet in the end I see There is the inevitable surrender. If I would be wholly free . You are remembering woman, with a purpose Stronger than anything in me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOTHER NIGHT by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON NOBODY'S LOOKIN' BUT DE OWL AND DE MOON (A NEGRO SERENADE) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON CHAMBER MUSIC: 8 by JAMES JOYCE STUDY FOR A GEOGRAPHICAL TRAIL; 3. WASHINGTON, D.C. by CLARENCE MAJOR SURFACES AND MASKS; 3 by CLARENCE MAJOR DOMESDAY BOOK: MRS. GREGORY WENNER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |