Copper Sun (Cullen)

by Countee Cullen

Copper Sun

 

COPPER SUN

 

By

Countee Cullen

Author of "Color" and "The Ballad of the Brown Girl"

 

WITH DECORATIONS BY
CHARLES CULLEN

 

 

Harper & Brothers, Publishers
New York and London
Mcmxxvii

COPPER SUN

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Copyright, 1927, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America

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First Edition
G-B

To the Not Impossible Her

Acknowledgments

TO

Harper's Magazine
Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life
Palms
The Crisis
Fire
Folio
Yule Tide Anthology
The Measure
Vanity Fair
Books of The New York Herald-Tribune
Foot Prints
The Conning Tower of the New York World
The Nation
The Bookman
The Carolina Magazine
acknowledgment is hereby made for permission to reprint certain poems that first appeared in these periodicals.

Contents

I. COLOR
from the dark tower		3
threnody for a brown girl		4
confession		8
uncle jim		9
colored blues singer		10
colors		11
the litany of the dark people		13
II. THE DEEP IN LOVE
pity the deep in love		17
one day we played a game		18
timid lover		20
nocturne		21
words to my love		22
en passant		23
variations on a theme		24
a song of sour grapes		26
in memoriam		27
lament		28
if love be staunch		30
the spark		31
song of the rejected lover		33
to one who was cruel		34
sonnet to a scornful lady		35
the love tree		36
III. AT CAMBRIDGE
the wind bloweth where it listeth		39
thoughts in a zoo		42
two thoughts of death		43
the poet puts his heart to school		45
love’s way		46
portrait of a lover		47
an old story		49
to lovers of earth: fair warning		51
IV. VARIA
in spite of death		55
cor cordium		56
lines to my father		57
protest		59
an epitaph		60
scandal and gossip		61
youth sings a song of rosebuds		63
hunger		64
lines to our elders		65
the poet		66
more than a fool’s song		67
and when i think		68
advice to a beauty		69
ultimatum		70
lines written in jerusalem		71
on the mediterranean sea		72
millennial		74
at the wailing wall in jerusalem		75
to endymion		76
epilogue		77
V. JUVENILIA
open door		81
disenchantment		82
leaves		84
song		86
the touch		87
a poem once significant, now happily not		88
under the mistletoe		89