Caroling Dusk/A Mona Lisa

←

When the Green Lies Over the Earth

Caroling Dusk (1927)
edited by Countee Cullen

A Mona Lisa by Angelina Weld Grimké

Paradox

→

Angelina Weld Grimké4747702Caroling Dusk — A Mona Lisa1927Countee Cullen

A MONA LISA

1.

I should like to creepThrough the long brown grasses That are your lashes; I should like to poise On the very brinkOf the leaf-brown pools That are your shadowed eyes;I should like to cleave Without sound,Their glimmering waters, Their unrippled waters,I should like to sink down And down And down . . . . And deeply drown.

2.

Would I be more than a bubble breaking? Or an ever-widening circle Ceasing at the marge?Would my white bones Be the only white bonesWavering back and forth, back and forth In their depths?