Thursday, 10 October 2024

America (A tribute to the United States of America for July 4th)

giuseppe appetecchia By giuseppe appetecchia | July 04, 2014 | United States

By Claude McKay

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, "America" from Liberator (December 1921). Courtesy of the Literary Representative for the Works of Claude McKay, Schombourg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tildeen Foundations.


Source: Liberator (The Library of America, 1921)


Claude McKay 1889–1948



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