Why should this Negro insolently stride <br />Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? <br />Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, <br />Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed, <br />Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, <br />Hot with a superfluity of heat, <br />Like a great brazier borne along the street <br />By captive leopards, black and burning pied. <br /> <br />Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream, <br />With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none <br />Like those white lilies, luminous and cool, <br />Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream <br />By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun <br />Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?<br /><br />Elinor Morton Wylie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/august-3/
