The Easter Flower by Claude McKay

The Easter Flower

by Claude McKay

Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly


My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,


Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily


Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!


Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,


It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief


In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,


And some called it the resurrection flower;

;And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,


Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.