| James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922. |
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| To O. E. A. |
| | | Claude McKay (1890–1948) |
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| YOUR voice is the color of a robin’s breast, | |
| And there’s a sweet sob in it like rain—still rain in the night. | |
| Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest, | |
| The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delight | |
| Like the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling throat. | 5 |
| I’m afraid of your eyes, they’re so bold, | |
| Searching me through, reading my thoughts, shining like gold. | |
| But sometimes they are gentle and soft like the dew on the lips of the eucharis | |
| Before the sun comes warm with his lover’s kiss, | |
| You are sea-foam, pure with the star’s loveliness, | 10 |
| Not mortal, a flower, a fairy, too fair for the beauty-shorn earth, | |
| All wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of their wealth to your birth: | |
| O I love you so much, not reeking of passion, that I feel it is wrong, | |
| But men will love you, flower, fairy, non-mortal spirit burdened with flesh, | |
| Forever, life-long. | 15 |
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