Poem by Claude McKay

The Spanish Needle

Lovely dainty Spanish needle 
With your yellow flower and white, 
Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, 
Do you think of me to-night? 

Shadowed by the spreading mango, 
Nodding o’er the rippling stream, 
Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, 
Do you of the exile dream? 

Do you see me by the brook’s side 
Catching crayfish ’neath the stone, 
As you did the day you whispered: 
Leave the harmless dears alone? 

Do you see me in the meadow 
Coming from the woodland spring 
With a bamboo on my shoulder 
And a pail slung from a string? 

Do you see me all expectant 
Lying in an orange grove, 
While the swee-swees sing above me, 
Waiting for my elf-eyed love? 

Lovely dainty Spanish needle, 
Source to me of sweet delight, 
In your far-off sunny southland 
Do you dream of me to-night?

1. Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table
2. The Wild Goat
3. The Tired Worker
4. Tormented
5. Flirtation

Print

1199 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version