“The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;But looking at her falsely-smiling face,I knew her self was not in that strange place.”Claude McKay The Harlem Dancer, l. 11-14
“If we must die, O let us nobly die,So that our precious blood may not be shedIn vain; then even the monsters we defyShall be constrained to honor us though dead!”Claude McKay If We Must DieIf We Must Die, l. 5-8 (1919)
“Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days,Even the sacred moments when we played,All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,At noon and evening in the flame-heart’s shade.”Claude McKay Flame-Heart, l. 26-29