Poem by James Weldon Johnson

The Suicide

For fifty years,
Cruel, insatiable Old World,
You have punched me over the heart
Till you made me cough blood.
The few paltry things I gathered
You snatched out of my hands.
You have knocked the cup from my thirsty lips.
You have laughed at my hunger of body and soul.

You look at me now and think,
"He is still strong,
There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there.
At the end of that time he will be old and broken,
Not able to strike back,
But cringing and crying for leave
To live a little longer."

Those twenty, pitiful, extra years
Would please you more than the fifty past,
Would they not, Old World?
Well, I hold them up before your greedy eyes,
And snatch them away as I laugh in your face,
Ha! Ha!
Bang--!

1. The Color Sergeant
2. Answer to Prayer
3. Down by the Carib Sea. 6. Sunset in the Tropics
4. O Southland!
5. Down by the Carib Sea. 1. Sunrise in the Tropics

Edna Millay The Suicide ("”Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!")

Print

1126 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version