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Harlem Shadows-Claude McKay · Dymer

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Introduction of Harlem Shadows. This is a LibriVox recording. LibriVox
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit librevox dot org. Read by Denise
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Ray Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay introduction. These poems have
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a special interest for all the races of man because
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: they are sung by a pure blooded Negro. They are
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the first significant expression of that race in poetry. We
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: tried faithfully to give a position in our literature to
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  Speaker 1: Paul Lawrence Dunbar. We have excessively welcomed other black poets
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  Speaker 1: of minor talent, seeking in their music some distinctive quality
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  Speaker 1: other than the fact that they wrote it. But here,
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  Speaker 1: for the first time we find our litterature vis enriched
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  Speaker 1: by a voice from this most alien race among us.
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  Speaker 1: And it should be illuminating to observe that while these
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  Speaker 1: poems are characteristic of that race as we most admire it.
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  Speaker 1: They are gentle, simple, candid, brave and friendly, quick of
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  Speaker 1: laughter and of tears. Yet they are still more characteristic
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  Speaker 1: of what is deep and universal in mankind. There is
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  Speaker 1: no special or exotic kind of merit in them, no
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  Speaker 1: quality that demands a transmutation of our own natures to perceive.
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  Speaker 1: Just as the sculptures and wood and ivory carvings of
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the vast forgotten African empires of Epifi and Benine, although
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: so wistful in their tranquility, are tranquil in the possession
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of the qualities of all classic and great art. So
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: these poems, the purest of them, move with a sovereignty
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  Speaker 1: that is never new to the life lovers of the
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  Speaker 1: high music of human utterance. It is the peculiarity of
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  Speaker 1: his experience, rather than of his nature, that makes this
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  Speaker 1: poet's race a fact to be remembered in the enjoyment
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  Speaker 1: of his songs. The subject of all poetry is the
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  Speaker 1: experience of the poet, and no man of any other
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  Speaker 1: race in the world can touch or imagine the experience
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  Speaker 1: of the children of African slaves in America. Claude Mackay
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  Speaker 1: was born in eighteen ninety in a little thatched house
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  Speaker 1: of two rooms in a beautiful valley of the hilly
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  Speaker 1: Middle country of Jamaica. He was born to the genial, warm, patient,
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  Speaker 1: neighborly farmer's life of that island. It was a life
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  Speaker 1: rich in sun and sound, and color and emotion, as
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  Speaker 1: we can see in his poems, which are forever homeward,
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  Speaker 1: yearning in the midst of their preyer and passion and
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  Speaker 1: strong will into the future, forever vividly remembering, like a
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  Speaker 1: bluebird's note in a march wind, those sudden, clear thoughts
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  Speaker 1: of the warm South ring out in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: his northern songs. They carry a thrill into the depth
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  Speaker 1: of our hearts. Perhaps in some sense they are thoughts
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  Speaker 1: of a mother. At least it seems inevitable that we
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  Speaker 1: should find among them those two sacred sonnets of a
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  Speaker 1: child's bereavement. It seems inevitable that a wonderful poet should
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: have had a wise and beautiful mother. We can only
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  Speaker 1: distantly imagine how the happy tropic life of play and
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  Speaker 1: affection became shadowed and somber for this sensitive boy as
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  Speaker 1: he grew by a sense of the subjection of his
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  Speaker 1: people and the memory of their bondage to an alien race. Indeed,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the memory of Claude Mackay's family goes back on his
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  Speaker 1: mother's side, beyond the days of bondage, to a time
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: in Madagascar when they were still free, and by the
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  Speaker 1: grace of God still savage. He learned in early childhood
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  Speaker 1: the story of their violent abduction, and how they were
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  Speaker 1: freighted over the seas and ships and sold at public
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  Speaker 1: auctions in Jamaica. He learned another story, too, which must
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  Speaker 1: have kindled a fire that slept in his blood, a
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  Speaker 1: story of the rebellion of the members of his own
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  Speaker 1: family at the auction block, a death strike, we should
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  Speaker 1: call it now, for they agreed that if they were
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  Speaker 1: divided and sold away into different parts of the country,
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  Speaker 1: they would all kill themselves. And this fact, solemnly announced
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  Speaker 1: in the market by the oldest white haired negro among them,
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  Speaker 1: had such an effect upon prospective buyers that it was
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  Speaker 1: impossible to sell them as individuals, and so they were
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  Speaker 1: all taken away together to those hills at Clarendon which
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  Speaker 1: their descendants still cultivate, with the blood of those rebels
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  Speaker 1: in his veins and their memory to stir it. We
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  Speaker 1: cannot wonder that Claude Mackay's earliest boyish songs in the
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  Speaker 1: Jamaica Dialect were full of heresy and the militant love
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  Speaker 1: of freedom, and that his first poems of political significance
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  Speaker 1: should have been a rally call to the street Carmen
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  Speaker 1: on striking Kingston. He found himself by an instinctive gravitation
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  Speaker 1: singing in the forefront of the battle for human liberty.
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  Speaker 1: A wider experience and a man's comprehension of the science
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  Speaker 1: of history has only strengthened his voice and his resolution.
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  Speaker 1: Those early songs, in the music he composed for them,
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  Speaker 1: were very popular in Jamaica. Claude Mackay was quite the
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  Speaker 1: literary prince of the island for a time, a kind
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  Speaker 1: of Robert Burns among his own people, as we can imagine,
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  Speaker 1: with his physical beauty, his quick sympathy, and the magnetic
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  Speaker 1: wayward humor of his ways. He received in nineteen twelve
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  Speaker 1: the Metal of the Institute of Arts and Sciences in
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  Speaker 1: recognition of his pre eminence. He was the first Negro
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  Speaker 1: to receive this medal, and he was the first poet
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  Speaker 1: who ever made songs in the quaint, haunting dialect of
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  Speaker 1: the island. But nevertheless, it was not until he came
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  Speaker 1: to the United States that Claude Mackay began to confront
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  Speaker 1: the deepest feelings in his heart and realized that a
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  Speaker 1: delicate syllabic music could not alone express them. Here his
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  Speaker 1: imagination awoke, and the colored imagery that is the language
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  Speaker 1: of all deep passion began to appear in his poetry.
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  Speaker 1: Here too, he conceived and felt the history and position
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  Speaker 1: of his people with mature poetic force. He knew that
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  Speaker 1: his voice belonged not only to his own moods and
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  Speaker 1: the general experience of humanity, but to the hopes and
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  Speaker 1: sorrows of his race. A great many foolish things are said,
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  Speaker 1: even by wise people, upon the subject of racial inferiority.
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  Speaker 1: They seem to think that if science could establish a
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  Speaker 1: certain difference of average ability, as between the whites and blacks,
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  Speaker 1: that would justify them in placing the whole of one
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  Speaker 1: of these races in a position of inferior esteem. The
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  Speaker 1: same fallacy is committed in the discussions of sex inferiority,
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  Speaker 1: and it is worth while to make clear the perfect
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  Speaker 1: folly of it. If any defined quantitative difference is ever
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  Speaker 1: established between the average abilities of such groups, it will
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  Speaker 1: be a relatively slight one. The difficulty of establishing it
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  Speaker 1: is a proof of that, and a slight difference in
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  Speaker 1: the general average would have no application whatever, as between
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  Speaker 1: any two individuals, or any minor group of individuals. The
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  Speaker 1: enormous majority of both races, as of both sexes would
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  Speaker 1: show that same degree of ability, And so great is
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  Speaker 1: the factor of individual variation that we could not even
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  Speaker 1: be sure an example of the highest ability might not
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  Speaker 1: arise in the group whose average was inferior. This simple
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  Speaker 1: consideration of fact and good logic should suffice to silence
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  Speaker 1: those who think they can ever appeal to science in
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  Speaker 1: support of a general race or sex prejudice. But in
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  Speaker 1: so far as the problem arises between a dominant and
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  Speaker 1: a subjected race, it is impossible for science to say anything.
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  Speaker 1: Even as to averages for a fair general test is impossible.
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  Speaker 1: The children of the subjected race never have a chance
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  Speaker 1: to be deprived at the very dawn of selfhood of
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  Speaker 1: a sense of possible superior aart is to be undernourished
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  Speaker 1: at the point of chief educative importance, and to be
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  Speaker 1: assailed in early childhood with a pervading intimation of inferiority
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  Speaker 1: is poisoned in the very centers of growth, except for
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  Speaker 1: people of the highest force of character. Therefore, to be
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  Speaker 1: borne into a subjected race is to grow up inferior
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  Speaker 1: not only to the other race, but to one's own
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  Speaker 1: potential self. We see an example of this kind of
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  Speaker 1: growth in the bombastic locutions of the traditional darkie who
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  Speaker 1: has acquired a little culture. Those great, big words and
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  Speaker 1: long sentences are the result of a feeling of inferiority.
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  Speaker 1: They are a pathetic overcorrection of the very quality of
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  Speaker 1: simple heartedness which is carried so high in these poems
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  Speaker 1: of Claude Mackay. It is carried so high and made
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  Speaker 1: so boldly beautiful, that we cannot withhold achurbut to his will,
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  Speaker 1: as well as to his music and imagination. The naked
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  Speaker 1: force of character that we feel in those two recent sonnets,
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  Speaker 1: Baptism and the White City, is no mere verbal semblance.
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  Speaker 1: Its reality is certified by the very achievement of such
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  Speaker 1: commanding art in the face of a contemptuous or condescending civilization.
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  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay came to the United States in nineteen twelve,
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  Speaker 1: having been offered in education here by a friend in
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  Speaker 1: Jamaica who believed in his abilities. His intention was to
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  Speaker 1: learn scientific farming and return to the island to offer
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  Speaker 1: practical wisdom as well as music to his people. He
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: went at first to one of our established philanthropic institutions,
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  Speaker 1: for the training of colored people. He stayed there a
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  Speaker 1: few months, long enough to weary of the almost military
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  Speaker 1: system of disciplate Lynn, and then he went to the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Agricultural College of Kansas, where he had learned that a
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  Speaker 1: free life and a more elective system of education prevailed.
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  Speaker 1: He studied for two years there, thinking continually less about
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  Speaker 1: farming and more about literature, and gradually losing away altogether
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  Speaker 1: the idea of returning to live in Jamaica. He left
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  Speaker 1: the college in nineteen fourteen, knowing that he was a poet,
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  Speaker 1: and imagining I think that he was a rather irresponsible
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  Speaker 1: and wayward character to cast in his lot with the
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  Speaker 1: working class Negroes of the North. Since then, he has
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  Speaker 1: earned his living in every one of the ways that
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  Speaker 1: the northern Negroes do, from pot wrestling in a boarding
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  Speaker 1: house kitchen to dining car service on the New York
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  Speaker 1: and Philadelphia Express But like all true poets, he failed
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  Speaker 1: to take the duty of earning a living very seriously.
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  Speaker 1: It was a matter of electing enough money from each
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  Speaker 1: new job to quit for a while and live, And
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  Speaker 1: with each period of living a new and more sure
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  Speaker 1: and beautiful song will come out of him. The growth
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  Speaker 1: of beauty as sureness in these songs would be apparent
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  Speaker 1: if they were arranged in the order of their creation.
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  Speaker 1: As it is, the reader will observe occasional lapses of quality.
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  Speaker 1: One or two of the rhythms, I confess I am
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  Speaker 1: not able to apprehend at all. Perhaps they will be
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  Speaker 1: picked up by receivers who are attuned to a different wavelength.
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  Speaker 1: But the quality is here in them, all, the pure, clear,
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  Speaker 1: arrow like transfermence of his emotion into our breast, without
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  Speaker 1: any but the inevitable words. The quality that reminds us
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  Speaker 1: of Burns and Villain and Catulusts, and all the poets
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  Speaker 1: that we call lyric because we love them so much.
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  Speaker 1: It is the quality that Keats sought to cherish when
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  Speaker 1: he said that poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a
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  Speaker 1: thing which enters into the soul and does not startle
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  Speaker 1: or amaze with itself, but with its subject. Poetry with
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  Speaker 1: this quality is not for those whose interest is mainly
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  Speaker 1: in the manufacture of poems. It will come rather to
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  Speaker 1: those whose interests is in the life of things. It
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  Speaker 1: is the poetry of life, and not of the poet's chamber.
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  Speaker 1: It is the poetry that looks upon a thing and sings.
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  Speaker 1: It is possessed by a feeling and sings. May it
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  Speaker 1: find its way a little quietly and softly in this
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  Speaker 1: age of roar and advertising to the hearts and love
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  Speaker 1: A true and unaffected song. Max Eastman end of introduction,
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  Speaker 1: author's word of Harlem Shadows. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit libravox dot org. Read by
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay author's word. In
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: putting ideas and feelings into poetry, I have tried in
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: each case to use the media most adaptable to the
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  Speaker 1: specific purpose. I own allegiance to no master. I have
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  Speaker 1: never found it possible to accept an entirety any one poet.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: But I have loved, enjoyed in what I consider the
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  Speaker 1: finest in the poets of all ages. The speech of
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  Speaker 1: my childhood and early youth was the Jamaica Negro dialect,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the native variant of English, which still preserves a few
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: words of African origin, and which is more difficult of
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: understanding than the American Negro dialect. But the language we
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: wrote and read in school was England's English. Our textbooks,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: then before the advent of the American and Jamaican readers,
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  Speaker 1: and our teachers too, were all English made. The native
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: teachers of the elementary schools were tutored by men and
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: women of British import I quite remember making up verses
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  Speaker 1: in the dialect and in English for our moonlight ring
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  Speaker 1: dances and for our school parties. Of our purely native songs.
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  Speaker 1: The jamas field and Road, sha Chaise, Yard and booth wakes,
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  Speaker 1: post mortem and Nancy tales, transplanet, African folklore, and revivals
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  Speaker 1: religious are all singularly punctuated by meter and rhyme, and
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  Speaker 1: nearly all my own poetic thought has always run naturally
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  Speaker 1: into these regular forms. Consequently, although very conscious of the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: new criticism and trends in poetry to which I am
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: keenly responsive and receptive, I have adhered to such of
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  Speaker 1: the older traditions as I find adequate for my most
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: lawless and revolutionary passions and moods. I have not used patterns, images,
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  Speaker 1: and words that would stamp me a classicist nor a modernist.
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  Speaker 1: My intellect is not scientific enough to range me on
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  Speaker 1: the side of either, nor is my knowledge wide enough
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  Speaker 1: for me to specialize in any school. I have never
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: studied poetics, but the forms I have used, I am
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  Speaker 1: convinced are the ones I can work in with the
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  Speaker 1: highest degree of spontaneity and freedom. I have chosen my
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: melodies and rhythms by instinct, and I have favored words
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and figures which flow smoothly and harmoniously into my compositions.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And in all my moods, I have striven to achieve directness, truthfulness,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and naturalness of expression instead of an enameled originality. I
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: have not hesitated to use words which are old and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: in some circles considered poetically overworked and dead, when I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: thought I could make them glow alive by new manipulation.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Nor have I stented my senses of the pleasure of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: using the decorative metaphor where it is more truly and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: vividly beautiful than the exact phrase. But for me, there
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: is more quiet delight in the golden moon of heaven
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: than in the terra cotta disk of cloud land. Finally,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: while I have welcomed criticism, friendly and unfriendly, and listened
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: with willing attention to many varying opinions concerning other poems
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and my own I have always in the summing up
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: fallen back on my own ear and taste as the arbiter,
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  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay end of Arthur's Word, Section two of Harlem
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  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray the Easter Flower. Far
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  Speaker 1: from this foreign easter, damp and chili, my soul steals
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  Speaker 1: to a pear shaped plot of ground where gleamed the
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  Speaker 1: lilac tinted easter lily, soft scented in the air for
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  Speaker 1: yards around alone, without a hint of garden leaf, just
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  Speaker 1: like a fragile bell of silver rime. It bursts the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: tomb for freedom, sweet and brief in the young pregnant
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: year at Easter time. And many thought it was a
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  Speaker 1: sacred sign, and some called it the Resurrection Flower. And
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I a pagan, worshiped at its shrine, yielding my heart
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  Speaker 1: unto its perfumed power. End of section two Section three
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. To one
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: coming north at first, you'll joy to see the playful snow,
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  Speaker 1: like white moths trembling on the tropic air, or waters
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  Speaker 1: of the hills that softly flow, gracefully falling down a
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  Speaker 1: shining stair. And when the fields and streets are covered white,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and the wind worried void is chilly raw, or underneath
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a spell of heat and light, the cheerless frozen spots
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: begin to fall. Like me, You'll long for home where
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: birds glad song means flowering lanes and lays and spaces,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: dry and tender thoughts and feelings, fine and strong beneath
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a vivid, silver flecked blue sky. But oh more than
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the changeless southern aisles. When spring has shed upon the
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: earth her charm, You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: smiles by the miraculous sun, turned glad and warm. End
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of section three, Section four of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray, America. Although she feeds me bread of bitterness
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, stealing my
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: hell that tests my youth, her vigor flows like tides
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: into my blood, giving me strength erect against her hate.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet as
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a rebel fronts a king and state, I stand within
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: her walls with not a shred of terror malice, not
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a word of jeer. Darkly, I gaze into the days ahead,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and see her might and granite wonders there beneath the
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: touch of times, unerring, hand like priceless treasures sinking in
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  Speaker 1: the sand. End of section four, Section five of Harlem
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray Alfonso dressing to wait
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: at table. Alfonso is a handsome, bronze ewed lad of
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: subtly changing and surprising parts. His moods are storms that
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: frighten and make glad. His eyes were made to capture
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: women's hearts down in the glory hole. Alfonso's sings olden
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  Speaker 1: song of wine and clinking glasses and riotous rakes magnificently
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: flings gay kisses to imaginary lasses. Alfossil's voice of mellow
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: music thrills are swaying forms and steal our hearts with joy.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And when he soars his fine falsado trills are rarest
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: notes of gold without alloy. But oh, Alfonso, wherefore do
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you sing dream songs of care free men and ancient places.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Soon we shall be beset by clamoring of hungry and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: important eate pale faces. End of section five, section six
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. The tropics
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: in New York Bananas ripe and green and ginger root,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: cocoa and pods, and alligator pears and tangerines and mangoes
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and grapefruit fit for the highest prize at parish. Bears
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: set in the window, bringing memories of fruit trees laden
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: by low, singing rills, and dewy dawns and mystical blue
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: skies in Benediction over none like hills. My eyes grew
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: dim and I could no more gaze. A wave of
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: longing through my body. Swept and hungry for the old
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: familiar ways, I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: End of section six, section seven of Harlem Shadows by
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Ray flame Heart. So much have I
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: forgotten in ten years? So much in ten brief years.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I have forgot what time the purple apples come to juice,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and what month brings the shy Forget me not. I
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: have forgot the special startling season of the pimentos flowering
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and fruiting. What time of year the ground dooves brown
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the fields and fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I have forgotten much, but still remember the Point sett
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: he is red, blood red and warm. I still recall
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the honey fever grass, but cannot recollect the high days
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: when we rooted them out of the penguind path to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: stop the mad bees in the rabbit pin. I often
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: try to think in what sweet month the languid painted
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: ladies used to dabble the yellow by road, mazing from
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the main sweet with the golden threads of the rose apple.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I have forgotten, strange, but quite remember the Point Settia's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: red blood red in warm December. What weeks, what months,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: What time of the mild year we cheated school to
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: have our fling at tops? What days are wine thrilled
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: bodies pulsed with joy? Feasting upon blackberries in the copse. Ohs,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: some I know I have embalmed the days, even the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: sacred moments when we played all innocent of passion, uncorrupt
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: at noon and evening in the flame Heart shade. We
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: were so happy, happy, I remember beneath the point Settia's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: read in warm December, end of section seven Section eight
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise ray Home thoughts, Oh,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: something just now must be happening there, that suddenly and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: quiveringly here amid the city's noises, I must think of
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: mangoes leaning o'er the river's brink, and dex t davy
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: climbing high above the god fruits ebbenspeckle to remove and
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: toss them quickly in the tangled mass of wistwiss twisted
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: round the guinea grass and cyril coming through the bramble track,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a prize bunch of bananas on his back, and Georgie
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: none could ever dive like him, throwing his scanty clothes
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: off for a swim. As schoolboys from Bridge Tunnel going home,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: watching the waters downward, dash and foam. This is no
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: daytime dream. There's something in it. Oh, something's happening there
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: this very minute end of section eight, section nine of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. On Broadway, about me,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: young and careless feet linger along the garish street above.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: A hundred shouting signs, shed down their bright, fantastic glow
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: upon the merry, crowded lines of moving carriages below. Oh
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: wonderful is Broadway. Only my heart. My heart is lonely, desired, neked,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: linked with passion. Go strutting by in brazen fashion from
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: playhouse cabaret, and in the rainbow lights of Broadway, blaze
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: all gay without all glad within, as in a dream.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I stand and gaze at Broadway shining Broadway only my heart.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: My heart is lonely. End of section nine, section ten
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray the barrier,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I must not gaze at them, although your eyes are
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: dawning day, I must not watch you as you go
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: your sun illumined way. I hear but I must never
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: heed the fascinating note, which, fluting like a river reed,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: comes from your trembling throat. I must not see upon
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: your face love's softly glowing spark, for there's the barrier
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of race your affair, and I am dark. End of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: section ten, section eleven of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray adolescence. There was a time when in late afternoon,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the four o'clocks would fold up at day's clothes, pink
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: white in prayer, and neath the floating moon. I lay
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: with them in calm and sweet repose, and in the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: open spaces I could sleep, half neked to the shining
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: worlds above. Peace came with sleep, and sleep was long
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and deep, gained without effort, sweet like early love. But
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: now no bomb, nor drug, nor weed nor wine can
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: bring true rest to cool my body's fever, nor sweeten
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: in my mouth the acid brine that salt my choices
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: drink and will forever. End of section eleven, Section twelve
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Homing swallows,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main oh rain birds
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: racing merrily away from hilltops parched with heat and sultry,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: plain of wilting plants and fainting flowers. Say when at
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the noon hour from the chapel school the children dash
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and scamper down the dale, scornful of teachers, rod and
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: binding rule forever broken and without avail, do they still
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: stop beneath the giant tree together locus in their childish
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: greed and chuckle when they break the pods to sea,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the golden powder clustered round the seed. End of section twelve,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Section thirteen of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: The City's love for one brief golden moment, rare like wine,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the gracious city swept across the line, oblivious of the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: color of my skin, forgetting that I was an alien guest.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: She bent to me my hostile heart to win, caught
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: me in passion to her pillowy breast. The great proud city,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: seized with a strange love, bowed down for one flame hour,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: my pride to prove. End of section thirteen Section fourteen
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. North and South,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Oh Sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams. Their time
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and life move lazily along there by the banks of
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: blue and silver streams, grass sheltered crickets, chirp incescient song.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Gay colored lizards lull all through the day, their tongues
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: outstressed for careless little flies and swarthy children in the
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: fields at play look upward, laughing at the smiling skies.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: A breath of idleness is in the air that casts
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: a subtle spell upon all things. And love and meeting
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: time are everywhere, and wonder two life's commonplaces clings. The
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: fluttering hummingbird darts through the trees and dips his long
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: beak in the big bellflowers. The leisured buzzard floats bond
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the breeze, riding a crescent cloud for endless hours. The
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: sea beats softly on the emerald strands. Oh Sweet, for
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: quiet dreams are tropic lands. End of section fourteen Section
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: fifteen of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox wecord
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Wild
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: May Alida mentions in her tender letters among a chain
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: of quaint and touching things, that you are feeble, weighed
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: down with fetters, and given to strange deeds and mutterings.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: No longer without trace or thought of fear do you
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: leap to and ride the rebel Rohane, but have become
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the victim of grim care, with three brown beauties to
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: support alone. But none the less will you be in
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: my mind, Wild May, that cantered by the risky ways,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: with showy headcloth, flirting in the wind from market in
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the glad December days, Wild May, of whom even other
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: girls could rave before sex tamed your spirit made you slave.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: End of section fifteen. Section sixteen of Harlem Shadows by
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: red by Denise Ray. The plateau. It was the silver
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: heart enveloping view of the mysterious sea line far away,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: seen only on a gleaming, gold white day, that made
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: it dear and beautiful to you, and Laura loved it.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: For the little hill where a quartz sparkled fire, barren
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: and dune. Whence, in the shadow of the dying sun,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: she contemplated Hallow's wooden mill, while Danny liked the sheltering
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: high grass in which he lay upon a clear, dry
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: night to hear and see screamskillfully from sight the happy
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: lovers of the valley pass. But oh I loved it
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: for the big round moon that swung out of the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: clouds and swooned aloft, burning with passion, gloriously soft lighting
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the purple flowers of fragrant June. End of section sixteen,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Section seventeen of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: After the winter, some day, when trees have shed their leaves,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and against the morning's white, the shivering birds beneath the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: eaves have sheltered for the night, will turn our faces
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: southward love, towards the summer isle, where bamboos spire to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: shafted growth and wide mouth orchid smile. And we will
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: seek the quiet hill where it towers the cotton tree
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and leaps the laughing crystal will and works the droning bee,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And we will build a cottage there beside an open
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: glade with black ribbed bluebells blowing near, and ferns that
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: never fade. End of section seventeen. Section eighteen of Harlem
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: public domain. Red by Denise Ray. The wild Goat, Oh,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: you would clothe me in silken frocks, and house me
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: from the cold, and bind with bright bands my glas
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: losty locks, and buy me chains of gold, and give
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: me meekly to do my will the hapless sons of men.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: But the wild goat, bounding on the barren hill, droops
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: in the grassy pen end of section eighteen, Section nineteen
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray, Harlem Shadows.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I hear the halting footsteps of alas in Negro Harlem,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: when the night lets fall its veil. I see the
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: shapes of girls who pass to bend and barter at
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: desire's call. Ah little dark girls who in slippered feet
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: go prowling through the night, from street to street, through
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the long night, until the silver break of day. The
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: little gray feet, no no rest through the lone night,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: until the last snowflake has dropped from heaven upon the
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: earth's white breasts. The dusky, half clad girls of tired
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: feet are trudging thinly shod from street to street. AH stern,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: harsh world, that, in the wretched way of poverty, dishonor,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and disgrace has pushed the timid little feet of Clay,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the sacred brown feet of my fallen race, Ah heart
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: of me, the weary, weary feet in Harlem, wandering from
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: street to street. End of section nineteen, Section twenty of
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Denise Rang the White City.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I will not toy with it, nor bend an inch.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Deep in the secret chambers of my heart, I muse
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: my lifelong hate, and without flinch, I bear it nobly
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: as I live my part. My being would be a skeleton,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: a shell if this dark passion that fills my every
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: mood and makes my heaven in the white world tell
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: did not forever feed me vital blood. I see the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: mighty city through a mist, the strident trains that speed
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the golded mass, the poles, inspires and towers vapor kissed,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: the fortressed port through which the great ships pass. The tides,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the wars the dens I contemplate are sweet like wanton
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: loves because I hate End of section twenty Section twenty
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: one of Harlem Shadows by Claude McCain. This LibriVox recording
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. The
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Spanish needle, lovely dainty Spanish needle, with your yellow flower
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and white do be decked and softly sleeping? Do you
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: think of me tonight? Shadowed by the spreading mango, nodding
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: o'er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood?
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Do you of the exiled dream? Do you see me
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: by the brook side catching crayfish neath the stone, as
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you did the day you whispered leave the harmless DearS alone?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Do you see me in the meadow, coming from the
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: woodland spring, with a bamboo on my shoulder and a
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: pail slung from a string. Do you see me all expected,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: lying in an orange grove, while the sweet sweet sing
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: above me, waiting for my elf eyed love, lovely dainty
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Spanish needle source to me of sweet delight in your
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: far off sunny southland. Do you dream of me tonight?
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: End of section twenty one Section twenty two of Harlem
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox week Horse is in
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Denise Ray My mother. Part one.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Regg wished me to go with him to the field.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I paused because I did not want to go. But
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: in her quiet way, she made me yield reluctantly, for
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: she was breathing low her hand she slowly lifted from
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: her lap, and, smiling sadly in the old sweet way,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: she pointed to the nail where hung my cap. Her
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: eyes said, I shall last another day. But scarcely had
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: we reached the distant place, when o'er the hills we
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: heard a faint bell ringing. A boy came running up
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: with frightened face. We knew the fatal news that he
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: was bringing. I heard him listenly without a moan, although
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the only one I loved was gone. Part two. The
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: day departs, The morning is begun, The trades come whispering
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: from off the seas. The fields of corn are golden
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: in the sun, the dark brown tassels fluttering in the breeze.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: The bell is sounding, and the children pass frog, leaping, skipping, shouting, laughing,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: shrill down the red road, over the pasture grass, up
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: to the schoolhouse, crumbling on the hill. The older folk
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: are at their peaceful toil, some pulling up the weeds,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: some plucking corn, and others breaking up the sun baked soil,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: float faintly scented breeze at early morn over the earth
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: where mortals sow and reap beneath its breast. My mother
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: lies asleep. End of section twenty two Section twenty three
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray in Bondage,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I would be wandering in distant fields, where man and
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: bird and beast lives leisurely, and the old Earth is
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: kind and ever yields her goodly gifts to all her
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: children free, where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding, and
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: boys and girls have time and space for play before
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: they come to years of understanding. Somewhere I would be
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: singing far away, for life is greater than the thousand wars.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Men wage for it in their insatiates, lust and will
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: remain like the eternal stars, when all that shines to
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: day is drift and dust. But I am bound with
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: you in your mean grays, old black men, simple slaves
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: of ruthless slaves. End of section twenty three Section twenty
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: four of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This libbox recording
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray, December
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen. Last night I heard your voice, Mother, the
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: words you sang to me when I a little barefoot boy,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: knelt down against your knee, and tears gushed from my heart, Mother,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and passed beyond its wall. But though the fountain reached
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: my throat, the drops refused to fall. Tis take years
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: since you died, Mother, just ten dark years of pain,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: And oh, I only wish that I could weep just
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: once again. End of section twenty four, Section twenty five
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Heritage. Now
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: the dead past seems vividly alive, and in this shining
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: moment I can trace down through the vista of the
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: vanished years, your fond like form, your fond elusive face,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: and suddenly some secret springs released, and unawares a riddle
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: is revealed, and I can read, like large black lettered
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: print what seemed before a thing forever sealed. I know
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the magic word, the graceful thought, the song that fills
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: me in my lucid hours, the spirit's wine that thrills
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: my body through and makes me music drunk. Are yours?
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: All yours? I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I have no tented thoughts to paint you true. But
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I can feel, and I can write the word. The
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: best of me is but the least of you. End
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: of section twenty five Section twenty six of Harlem Shadows
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Ray. When I have passed, When I
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: have passed away at am forgotten, and no one living
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: can recall my face, When under alien sod, my bones
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: lie rotten, with not a tree or stone to mark
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the place. Perchance a pensive youth with passion burning for
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: olden verse that smacks of love and wine, the musty
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: pages of old volumes turning may light upon a little
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: song of mine. And he may softly hum the tune
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: and wonder who wrote the verses in the long ago,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: or he may sit him down a while to ponder
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: upon the simple words that touch him so. End of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: section twenty six, section twenty seven of Harlem Shadows by
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Rey enslaved. Oh, when I think of
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: my long suffering race for weary centuries, despised, oppressed, enslaved
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and lynched, denied a human place in the great life
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: line of the Christian West, and in the Black Land, disinherited,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: robbed in the ancient country of its birth, my heart
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: grows sick with hate, becomes as lad for this, my
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: race that has no home on Earth. Then, from the
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: dark depths of my soul, I cry to the avenging
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Angel to consume the white man's world of wonders utterly.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Let it be swallowed up in Earth's vast womb, or
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: upward roll as sacrificial smoke, to liberate my people from
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: its yoke. End of section twenty seven, section twenty eight
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: in the public domain, read by Denise Ray. I shall return,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I shall return again. I shall return to laugh and
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: love and watch with wonder eyes at golden noon the
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: forest fires burn, wafting their blue black smoke to sapphire skies.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I shall return to loiter by the streams that bade
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the brown bleades of the bending grasses, and realize once
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: more my thousand dreams of waters rushing down the mountain passes.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife of
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: village dances, dear delicious tunes that stir the hidden depths
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: of native life, stray melodies of dim remembered ruins. I
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: shall return. I shall return again to ease my mind
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: of long, long years of pain. End of section twenty
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: eight Section twenty nine of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. Morning Joy at night, the wide and level
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: stretch of wold, which at high noon had basked in
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: quiet gold, far as the eye could see, was ghostly white.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Dark was the night, save for the snow's weird light.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I drew the shades far down, crept into bed Hearing
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the cold wind moaning overhead through the sad pines, my soul,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: catching its pain, went sorrowing with it across the plain.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: At dawn, behold, the fall of night was gone, save
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: where a few shrubs melancholy lone detained, A fragile shadow,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: golden lipped the laughing grass's heaven, sweet wine sipped the
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: sun rose smiling over the river's breast, And my soul,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: by his happy spirit blest soared like a bird to
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: greet him in the sky, and drew out of his
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: heart eternity. End of section twenty nine, Section thirty of
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Denise Ray Africa. The sun
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: sought thy dim bed and brought forth light. The sciences
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: were sucklings at thy breast, when all the world was
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: young and pregnant night. Thy slaves toiled at thy monumental best.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Thou ancient treasure land, Thou mardyn prize knew people's marvel
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: at thy pyramids. The years roll on thy Sphinx of
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: riddle eyes watches the mad world with immobile lids. The
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Hebrews humbled them at Pharaoh's name, cradle of power. Yet
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: all things were in vain, honor and glory, arrogance and fame.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: They went the darkness swallowed thee again, Thou art thy Harlot,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Now thy time is done of all the mighty nations
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: of the Sun. End of section thirty Section thirty one
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. On a
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: primitive canoe here passing lonely down this quiet lane before
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: a mud splash window, long eye paused to gaze and gaze,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: while through my active brain still thoughts are stirred to wakefulness. Because,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: long long ago, in a dim unknown land, a massive
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: forest tree acts felled as yune was definitely done by
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: cunning mortal hand into a symbol of the tender moon.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Why does it thrill more than the handsome boat that
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: bore me o'er the wild Atlantic ways and fill me
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: with rare sense of things remote from this harsh life
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: of fretful nights and days? I cannot answer. But whate'er
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: it be, an old wine has intoxicated me. End of
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: section thirty one, Section thirty two of Harlem Shadows by
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Ray. Winter in the country, Sweet life,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: How lovely to be here and feel the soft sea
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: laden breeze strike my flushed face, the spruce's fair, free limbs,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: to see the lesser trees, bare hands, to touch, the
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: sparrow's cheap to heed and watch his nimble flight above,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the short brown grass asleep, love glorious in his friendly might,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: music that every heart could bless and thoughts of life serene, divine,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: beyond my power to express. Crowd round this lifted heart
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: of mine. But oh, to leave this paradise for the
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: city's dirty basement room where beauty hidden from the eyes,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: a table bed, bureau, and broom in corners set two
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: crippled chairs, all covered up with dust and grim, with
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: hideousness and scars of years, and gaslight burning weird and dim,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: will welcome me. And yet and yet this very wind,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the winter birds, the glory of the soft sunset come
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: there to me in words end of section thirty two
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Section thirty three of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: To Winter Stay, season of calm, love and soulful snows.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: There is a subtle sweetness in the sun. The ripples
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: on the stream's breast gaily run, the wind more boasterously
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: by me blows, and each succeeding day now longer grows
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: the birds a gladder music have begun, the squirrel full
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: of mischief and of fun. From maple's topmost branch, the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: brown twig throws. I read these pregnant signs, know what
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: they mean. I know that thou art making ready to go.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: Oh stay. I fled a land where fields are green always,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: and palms wave gently to and fro, and winds are
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: bomby blue brooks evercheene to ease my heart of its
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: impassioned woe. End of section thirty three Section thirty four
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Spring in
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire two J period L period J period F
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: period E period to green, the springing april, grass too blue,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: the silver speckled sky for me to linger here alas
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: while happy winds go laughing by wasting the golden hours indoors,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: washing windows and scrubbing floors. Too wonderful, the April night
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: to faintly sweet, the first May flowers, the stars to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: gloriously bright, for me to spend the evening hours when
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: fields are fresh and streams are leaping, wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: End of section thirty four Section thirty five of Harlem
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: public domain. Red by Denise Ray. On the road, roar
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: of the rush train, fearfully rocking, impatient people jammed in
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: line for food, the rasping noise of cars together, knocking
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: and worried waiters, some in ugly mood, crowding into the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: choking pantry hole to call out dishes for each. Angry glutton,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: exasperated groan beyond control from waiting for his soup or
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: fish or mutton. At last, the stations reached. The engine
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: stops for bags and wraps. The red cap circle round
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: from off the step. The passenger lightly hops and seeks
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: his cab or tramcard homeward bound. The waiters pass out, weary, listless,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: glum to spin their tips on Harlot's cards and rum
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: end of section thirty five, Section thirty six of Harlem
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: public domain, read by Denise Ray. The Harlem dancer applauding youth,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: laughed with young prostitutes, and watched her perfect, half clothed
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: body sway. Her voice was like the sound of blended
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: flutes blown by black players upon a picnic day. She
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: sang and danced ungracefully and calm, the light gauze hanging
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: loose about her form. To me, she seemed a proudly
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: swaying palm grown lovelier for passing through a storm upon
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: her swarthy neck, black shiny curls, luxuriant fell and tossing
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: coins and praise. The wine flush of bold eyed boys
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: and even the girls devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: But looking at her falsely smiling face, I knew herself
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: was not in that strange place. End of section thirty six,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Section thirty seven of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Dawn in New York. The dawn, the dawn, the crimson
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: tinted comes out of the low still skies over the hills,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes. The dawn, my
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: spirit to its spirit thrills. Almost the mighty city is asleep,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: No pushing crowd, no tramping trampings. But here and there
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: a few cars, groaning creep along above and underneath the street,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: burying their strangely ghostly burdens by the women and the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: men of Garish knights. Their eyes wine weakened, and their
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: clothes awry, grotesque. Beneath the strong electric lights, the shadows wane,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: The dawn comes to New York, and I go darkly
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: rebel to my work. End of section thirty seven Section
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: thirty eight of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: The tired worker, Oh, whisper, oh my soul, The afternoon
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: is waiting into evening. Whisper soft peace, oh my rebel heart.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: For soon the moon, from out its misty veil will
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: swing aloft, be patient, weary body. Soon the night will
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: wrap thee gently in her sable sheet, and with a
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: leaden sigh, thou wilt invite to rest thy tired hands
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: and aching feet. The wretched day was theirs. The night
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: is mine. Come tender sleep and fold me to thy breast.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: But what steals out the gray clouds red like wine.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Oh dawn, Oh dreaded dawn. Oh let me rest, weary
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: my veins, my brain, my life, have pity. No once again,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: the harsh, the ugly city. End of section thirty eight
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Section thirty nine of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: Ray outcast for the dim regions. Whence my fathers came
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: my spirit bondage by the body longs worlds felt but
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: never heard. My lips would frame, my soul would sing
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: forgotten jungle songs. I would go back to darkness and
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: to peace. But the great Western world holds me in fee,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: and I may never hope for full release. While to
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: its alien gods I bend my knee. Something in me
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: is lost, forever lost. Some vital thing has gone out
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: of my heart, and I must walk the way of
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: life a ghost among the sons of Earth, a thing apart,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: for I was born far from my native clime, under
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the white Man's menace, out of time. End of section
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: thirty nine, Section forty of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. I know my soul. I plucked my soul
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: out of its secret place and held it to the
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: mirror of my eye to see it like a star
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: against the sky, a twitching body quivering in space, a
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: spark of passion shining on my face. And I explored
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: it to determine why this awful key to my infinity
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: conspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace. And
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: if the sign may not be fully read, if I
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: can comprehend but not control, I need not gloom my
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: days with futile dread, because I see a part and
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: not the whole. Contemplating the strange, I am comforted by
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: this narcotic thought. I know my soul. End of section forty,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Section forty one of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Red by Denise Ray.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: Birds of Prey their Shadow dims the sunshine of our day.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: As they go lumbering across the sky, squawking in joy
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: of feeling safe on high. Beating their heavy wings of
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: owlish gray, they scare the singing birds of earth away.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: As greed impelled, they circle threatenedly, watching the toilers with
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: malignant eye from their exclusive haven. Birds of prey, they
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: swoop down for the spoil in certain might, and fastening
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: our bleeding flesh their claws, they beat us to surrender,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: weak with fright and tugging and tearing without let or paws,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: they flap their hideous wings in grim delight and stuff
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: our gory hearts into their maws. End of section four one,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: section forty two of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: The castaways, the vivid grass with visible delight, springing triumph
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: from the pregnant earth. The butterflies and sparrows in brief flight,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: chirping and dancing for the season's birth. The dandelions and
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: rare daffodils that touch the deep stirred heart with hands
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: of gold. The thrushes sending forth their joyous trills. Not these,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: Not these did I at first behold, but seated on
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: the benches, dabbed with green, the castaways of life, of
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: few asleep, some withered women, desolate and mean, and overall
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: life shadows dark and deep, moaning. I turned away for misery.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: I have the strength to bear, but not to see.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: End of section forty two Section forty three of Harlem
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray Exhortation Summer nineteen nineteen.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: Through the pregnant universe rumbles, Life's terrific thunder and Earth's
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: bowels quake with terror. Strange and terrible storms break, Lightning,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: torches flame, the heavens, kindling souls of men there under Africa,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: long ages sleeping, Oh, my Motherland, awake In the east,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: and its golden glory fills the western skies. Oh, my
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: brothers and my sisters wake, arise for the new birth winds,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: the old Earth, and the very dead are waking. Ghosts
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: are turned flesh, throwing off the graves of skies, and
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: the foolish even children are made wise for the big Earth.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Groans in travail for the strong New world. In making,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Oh my brothers, dreaming for dim sentries, Wake from sleeping
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: to the east. Turn turn your eyes. Oh the night
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: is sweet for sleeping, but the shining days for working suns.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Of the seductive night, for your children's children's sake. From
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: the deep primeval forest where they're crouching leopards lurking, Lift
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: your heav vlited eyes, Ethiopia, Awake in the east. The
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: and its golden glory fills the western skies. Oh, my
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: brothers and my sisters wake, arise for the new birth rends,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: the old earth, and the very dead are waking. Ghosts
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: are turned flesh, throwing off the graves, diskies, and the foolish,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: even children are made wise for the big Earth. Groans
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: in travail for the strong new world. In making, Oh
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: my brothers, dreaming for long centuries, Wake from sleeping to
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: the east, Turn turn your eyes. End of section forty
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: three Section forty four of Heart Carlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public Domain read by
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. The lynching, his spirit and smoke ascended to
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: high heaven. His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: had bidded him to his bosom once again. The awful
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: sin remained still unforgiven all night. A bright and solitary star, perchance,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: the one that ever guided him, yet gave him up
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: at last. A fate wild whim hung pitifully or the
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: swinging char day dawn, and soon the mixed crowds came
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: to view the ghastly body swaying in the sun. The
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: women thronged to look, but never a one showed sorrow
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: in her eyes of steely blue, And little lads lynchers
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: that were to be danced round the dreadful thing in
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: fiendish glee. End of section forty four Section forty five
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Baptism into
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: the furnace, Let me go alone, Stay you without in
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: terror of the heat. I will go neck it in,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: for thus tis sweet, into the weird depths of the
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: hottest zone. I will not quiver in the frailest bone.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: You will not note a flicker of defeat. My heart
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: shall tremble, not its fate to meet My mouth give
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: utterance to any moan. The yarning oven spits forth fiery spears,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: red aespus, tongues shout wordlessly my name, desire destroys, consumes
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: my mortal fears, transforming me into a shape of flame.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: I will come out back to your world of tears,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: a stronger soul within a finer frame. End of section
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: forty five Section forty six of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. If we must die, if we must die,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: let it not be like hogs hunted and penned in
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: an inglorious spot, while round us mark the mad and
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: hungry dogs making their mock at our accursed lot. If
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: we must die, oh, let us nobly die, so that
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: our precious blood may not be shed in vain. Then
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: Though dead, O kinsmen, we must meet the common foe,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: though far outnumbered, let us show us brave, and for
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: their thousand blows, deal one death blow. What thou before
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: us lies the open grave like men will face the murderous,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: cowardly pack press to the wall, dying but fighting back.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: End of section forty six Section forty seven of Harlem
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: public domain. Red by Denise Ray. Subway wind far down
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: down through the city's great gaunt cut. The gray train
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: rushing bears the weary wind. In the packed cars, the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: fans the crowd's breath cut, leaving the sick and heavy
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: air behind, and pale cheek children seek the upper door
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: to give their summer jackets to the breeze. Their laugh
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: is swallowed in the deafening roar of captive wind that
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: moans for fields and seas, seas cooling warm, where native
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: schooners drift through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: waiting for windy waves. The keels to lift lightly among
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the islands of the deep islands of lofty palm trees
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: blooming white that lend their perfume to the tropic sea,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: where fields lie idle in the dew drenched night, and
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: the trades float above them, fresh and free. End of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: section forty seven. Section forty eight of Harlem Shadows by
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Red by Denise Ray. The night fire, no engine, shrieking
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: rescue storm, the night and hose and hydrant cannot here avail.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light, and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: clouds turn gray and black from silver pale. The fire
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: leaps out and licks the ancient walls, and the big
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: building bins and twists and groans. A bar drops from
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: its place, A rafter falls, burning the flowers. The wind
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: in frenzy moans the watcher's gaze held wandering by the fire.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: The dwellers cry their sorrow to the crowd. The flames
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: beyond themselves, rise higher higher, to lose their glory in
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the frowning cloud, yielding at length the last reluctant breath,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: And where life lay asleep broods darkly death. End of
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: section forty eight Section forty nine of Harlem Shadows by
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox according is in the public domain.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Ray. Poetry. Sometimes I tremble like a
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: storm swept flower, and seek to hide my tortured soul
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: from thee, bowing my head in deep humility before the
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: silent thunder of thy power. Sometimes I flee before thy
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: blazing light, as from the specter of pursuing death, intimidated
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: lest thy mighty breath wind ways will sweep me into
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: utter night. For oh, I fear they will be swallowed
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: up the loves which are to me of vital worth,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: my passion and my pleasure in the earth, and lost
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: forever in thy magic. Up I fear, I fear my
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: truly human heart will perish on the altar stone of art.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: End of section forty nine, Section fifty of Harlem Shadows
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Ray two, a poet. There is a
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: lovely noise about your name above the shoutings of the city,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: clear more than a moment's merriment, whose claim will greater
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: grow with every mellowed year. The people will not bear
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: you down the street dancing to the strong rhythm of
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: your words. The martin kings will throttle you to greet
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: the piping voice of artificial birds. But the rare, lonely spirits,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: even mine, who love the immortal music of all days.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Will see the glory of your trailing line, the bed
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: at beauty of your haunting lays. End of section fifty
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: Section fifty one of harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: A prayer mid the discordant noises of the day. I
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: hear THEE calling, I stumble as I fare a long
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: Earth's way, Keep me from falling. Mine eyes are open,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: but they cannot see. For gloom of night. I can
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: no more than lift my heart to THEE. For inward light,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: the wild and fiery passion of my youth consumes my soul.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: In agony, I turn to THEE for truth and self control,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: For passion and all the pleasures it can give. Will
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: die the death, But this of me internally must live
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: thy borrowed breath. Mid the discordant noises of the day,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: I hear THEE calling, I stumble as I fare along
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: Earth's way, Keep me from falling. End of section fifty one,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Section fifty two of Harlem's Shadows by Claude Mackay. This
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Rey.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: When dawn comes to the city, the tire weird cars
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: go grumbling by, the moaning, groaning cars, and the old
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: milk carts go rumbling by under the same dull stars.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Out of the tenement's coldest stone, dark figures start for work.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: I watched them sadly shuffle on tis dawn, dawn in
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: New York. But I would be on the island of
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: the sea, in the heart of the island of the sea,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: where their cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing, and the hens
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: are cackling in the rose apple tree, where the old
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: draft horse is neighing, nighing, neighing out on the brown
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: dew silvered lawn, and the tethered cow is lowing, lowing, lowing,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: and dear old ned is braying braying, braying, and the
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: shaggy nanny goat is calling, calling, calling, from her little
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: trampled corner of the long wide lay that stretches to
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: the waters of the hill stream, falling sheer upon the
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: flat rocks joyously. There, oh, there, on the island of
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: the sea, there I would be. At dawn, the tired
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: cars go grumbling by, the crazy lazy cars, and the
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: same milk carts go rumbling by under the dying stars.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: A lonely newsboy hurries by, humming a recent ditty. Red
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: streaks strike through the gray of the sky. The dawn
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: comes to the city. But I would be on the
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: island of the sea, in the heart of the island
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: of the sea, where their cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: and the hens are cackling in the rose apple tree,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: where the old draft horse is neighing, neighing, neighing, out
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: on the brown dew silvered lawn, and the tethered cow
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: is lowing, lowing, lowing, and dear oh Ned is braying, braying, braying,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: and the shaggy nanny goat is calling, calling, calling, from
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: her little trampled corner of the long wide lay that
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: stretches to the waters of the hill stream. Falling sheer
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: upon the flat rocks joyously. There, oh, there, on the
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: island of the sea. There I would be at dawn.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty two section fifty three of Harlem
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray. A word I love
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: to sing, A word I love to sing. Thou art
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: too tender for all the passions agitating me, for all
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: my bitterness, Thou art too tender. I cannot pour my
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: red soul into thee Oh haunting melody. Thou art too slender,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: too fragile, like a globe of crystal glass, for all
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: my stormy thoughts, Thou art too slender. The burden from
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: my bosom will not pass. Oh tender word, Oh melody,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: so slender, Oh, tears of passion saturate with brine, O words,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: unwilling words. Ye cannot render my hatred for the foe
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: of me and mine. End of section fifty three, Section
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: fifty four of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: we quitting is in the public domain. Read by Denise
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: Ray Absence. Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: into a pool, rippling around my breast and leaving it
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: melting cool. Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: dawn dews from the limb of a fruit filled lemon tree.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: When the day is young and dim, like soft rain,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace. Your breath,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: sweet scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face, but
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: a silence, fasty deep, oh deeper than all these ties,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: now through the menacing miles brooding between us lies, and
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: more than the songs, I sing, I await your written
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: word to stir my fluent blood, as never your presence stirred.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty four Section fifty five of Harlem
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This lever box recording is in
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Summer morn in
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. All yesterday it poured, and all night long
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: I could not sleep. The rain unceasing, beat upon the
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: shingle roof like a weird song, upon the grass, like
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: running children's feet, and down the mountains by the dark
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: cloud kissed like a strange shape in filmy veiling, dressed
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: slid slowly, silently, the wraith like mist and nestle, soft
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: against the earth's wet breast. But lo, there was a
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: miracle at dawn, the still air stirred at touch of
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: the faint breeze the sun. A sheet of gold bequeathed
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: the lawn, The songsters twittered in the rustling trees, and
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: all things which transfigured in the day, But me whom
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: radiant beauty could not move for you more wonderful were
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: far away, and I was blind with hunger for your love.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty five, section fifty six of Harlem
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Rest in peace no
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: more for you. The city's thorny ways, the ugly corners
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: of the Negro Belt, the miseries and pains of these
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: harsh days by you will never never again be felt
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: no more. If you still wander, will you meet with
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: knights of unabating bitterness. They cannot reach you in your
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: safe retreat. The city's hate, the city's prejudice, twas sudden,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: But your menial task is done. The dawn now breaks
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: on you. The dark is over, the sea is crossed.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: The longed for port is one. Farewell, Oh fare you well,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: my friend and lover. End of section fifty six, section
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: fifty seven of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: A red flower, Your lips are like a southern lily,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: red wet with the soft rain, kisses of the night,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: in which the brown bee buries deep its head when
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: still the dawns a silver sea of light. Your lips
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: betray the secret of your soul, the dark, delicious essence
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: that is you, a mystery of life, the flaming goal
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: I seek through maizy pathways strange and new. Your lips
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: are the red symbol of a dream. What visions of
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: warm lilies they impart that line the green bank of
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: a fair blue streak, with butterflies and bees close to
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: each heart, Brown bees that murmur, sounds of music, rare
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: that softly fall upon the languorous breeze, rafting them gently
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: on the quiet air among untended avenues of trees. Oh,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: were I hovering a bee to probe deep down within
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: your scented heart, fair flower, enfolded by your soft, vermillion robe,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: amorous of sweets for but one perfect hour. End of
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: section fifty seven Section fifty eight of Harlem Shadows by
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: Red by Denise Ray courage O lonely heart, so timid
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: of approach, like the shy tropic flower that shuts its
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: lips to the faint touch of tender finger tips. What
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: is your word? What question would you broach? Your lustrous
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: warm eyes are too sadly kind to mask the meaning
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: of your dreamy tale, Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: against the daggers of my warring mind. There is no
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: part of the unyielding earth, even bare rocks where the
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: eagles build their nests, will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: No dew fall softens this vast belt of dearth. But
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: in the socket chisel teeth of strife that gleamed and
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: serried files in all the lands, we may join, hungry,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: understanding hands, and drink our share of ardent love and life.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty eight Section fifty nine of Harlem
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray to O E A.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: Your voice is the color of a robin's breast, and
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: there's a sweet sob in it, like rain still rain
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: in the night among the leaves of the trumpetry close
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: to his nest. The p dove sings that each note
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: thrills me with strange delight, like the words wet with
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: music that well from your trembling throat. I'm afraid of
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: your eyes. They're so bold, searching me through, reading my thoughts,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: shining like gold. But sometimes they are gentle and soft,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: like the dew on the lips of the eucharis before
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: the sun comes warm with his lover's kiss. You are
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: sea foam, pure with the star's loveliness, not mortal of flower,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: a fairy too fair for the beauty shorn earth. All
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of their wealth to
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: your birth. Oh, I love you so much, not wrecking
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: of passion that I feel it is wrong, But men
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: will love you flower fairy, non mortal spirit, burned with
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: flesh forever life. Long end of section fifty nine, Section
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: sixty of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray Romance.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: To clasp you now and feel your head close, pressed,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: scented and warm against my beating breasts. To whisper, soft
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: and quivering your name, And drink the passion burning in
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: your frame. To lie at full length, taut with cheek
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: to cheek, and tease your mouth with kisses till you
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: speak love words, mad words, dream words, sweet, senseless words,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: melodious like notes of mating birds. To hear you ask
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: if I shall love always, and myself answer till the
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: end of days. To feel your easeful sigh of happiness,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: When on your trembling lips I murmur, yes, it is
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: so sweet. We know it is not true. What matters it?
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: The night must shed her do We know it is
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: not true, but it is sweet. The poem with this
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: music is complete. End of section sixty Section sixty one
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray. Flower of Love.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: The perfume of your body dulls my sense. I want
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: nor wine nor weed. Your breath alone suffices in this moment,
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: rare and tense. I worship at your breast. The flower
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: is blown, The saffron puddles tempt my amorous mouth. The
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: yellow heart is radiant now with dew, soft scented, reduliant
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: of my loved self. O, Flower of Love, I give
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: myself to you, uncovered on your couch of figured green. Here,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: let us linger indivisible, the portals of your sanctuary unseen
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: receive my offering, yielding unto me. Oh, with our love.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: The night is warm and deep, The air is sweet,
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: my flower, and sweet the f whose music lulls are
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: burning brain to sleep while we lie loving, passionate and mute.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: End of section sixty one Section sixty two of Harlem
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Ray The Snow Fairy Part one.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: Throughout the afternoon I watched them there, snow fairies falling,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: falling from the sky, whirling fantastic in the misty air,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: contending fierce for space supremacy. And they flew down a
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: mightier force. At night, as though in heaven there was
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: revolt and riot, and they frail things, had taken panic
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: flight down to the calm earth. Seeking peace and quiet,
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: I went to bed and rose at early dawn to
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: see them huddle together in a heap, each merged into
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: the other upon the lawn, worn out by the sharp struggle,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: fast asleep, the sun shone brightly on them half the day.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: By night they stealthily had stolen away Part two. And
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: suddenly my thoughts then turned to you, who came to
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: me upon a winter's night, when snow sprits round my
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: attic window flew your hair, disheveled, eyes aglow with light.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: My heart was like the weather when you came. The
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: went on winds were blowing loud and long, but you,
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: with joy and passion, all aflame. You danced and sang
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: a lilting summer song. I'm We made room for you
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: in my little bed too, covers from the closet, fresh
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: and warm, a downfall pillow for your scented head, and
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: lay down with you resting in my arm. You went
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: with dawn. You left me ere of the day, the
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: lonely actor of a dreamy play. End of section sixty
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: two Section sixty three of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray la Paloma in London, about soho we went
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: before the light? We went unresting six craving new fun,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: new scenes, new raptures for the feverite night of rollicking, laughter,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: drink and song was done. The vault was void but
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: for the dawn's great star that shed upon our path
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: at silver Flame. When La Paloma, on a low guitar.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: Abruptly from a darkened casement came Harlem. All else shut out.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: I saw the hall, and you, in your red shouldered sash,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: come dancing with val against me, languid by the wall,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: your burning coffee colored eyes, keen glancing a slant at mine,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: proud in your golden glory. I loved you, Cuban girl,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: fond sweet diory. End of section sixty three section sixty
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: four of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Red by Denise Ray. A
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: memory of June. When June comes dancing o'er the death
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: of May, with scarlet roses tinting her green breast and
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: mating thrushes, ushering in her day and earth on tiptoe
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: for her golden guest. I always see the evening when
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: we met the first of June, baptized in tender rain,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: and walked home through the wide streets, gleaming wet arms locked,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: our warm flesh pulsing with love's pain. I always see
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: the cheerful little room, and in the corner, fresh and white,
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: the bed, sweet scented with a delicate perfume, wherein for
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: one night only we were wed, wherein the starlit stillness
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: we lay mute and heard the whispering showers all night long,
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: And your brown burning body was the lute, whereon my
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: passion played his fevered song when June comes dancing, or
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: the death of May with scarlet roses staining her fair feet.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: My soul takes leave of me to sing all day
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: a love so fugitive and so complete. End of section
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: sixty four Section sixty five of harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. Flirtation upon thy purple mat Thy body bear
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: is fine and limber, like a tender tree. The motion
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: of thy supple form is rare, like a lith panther, lulling, languidly,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: toying and turning slowly in her lair. Oh, I would
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: never ask for more of thee Thou art so clean
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: and passion and so fair enough, if thou wilt ask
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: no more of me. End of section sixty five Section
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: sixty six of Harlem's Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray, tormented,
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: I will not reason wrestle here with you, though you
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: pursue and worry me about as well. Put forth my
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: swarthy arm to stop the wild wind, howling darkly mad
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: without the night is yours, for revels day will light.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: I will not fight you bold and tigerish, for I
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: am weak while you are gaining strength. Peace cease tormenting
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: me to have your wish. But when you're filled and
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: sated with the flesh, I shall go swiftly to the
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: silver stream to cleanse my body for the spirit's sake,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: and sund my limbs, and close my eyes to dream.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: End of section sixty six Section sixty seven of Harlem
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Denise Rey, polarity, Na, why reproach
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: each other, be unkind, for there's no plane on which
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: we two may meet. Let's both forgive forget, for both
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: were blind, And life is of a day, and time
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: is fleet. And I am fire, swift of flame and burn,
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: melting with elements high overhead, while you are water in
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: an earthly urn, all pure but heavy and of you
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: like lead. End of section sixty seven Section sixty eight
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This liprivox recording is
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Denise Ray one year
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: after Part one. Not once in all our days of
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: poignt love did I a single instant give to thee
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: my undivided being wholly free. Not all thy potent passion
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: could remove the barrier that loomed between to proof the
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: full supreme surrendering of me. Oh, I was beaten, helpless,
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: utterly against the shadow fact with which I strove for
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: when a cruel power forced me to face the truth
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: which poisoned our illicid wine, that even I was faithless
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: to my race, bleeding beneath the iron hand of thine,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: our union seemed a monstrous thing, and base I was
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: an outcast from thy world and mine. Part two adventures
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: seasoned and storm buffeted. I shun all signs of anchorage
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: because the zest of life exceeds the bound of laws.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: New gales of tropic fury round my head, break, lashing
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: me through hours of soulful dread. But when the terror
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: thins and spent with draws, leaving me wondering awhile I pause,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: but soon again the risky ways I tread, no rigid
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: road for me, no peace, no rest, while molten elements
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: run through my blood and beauty. Burning bodies manifest their
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: warm heart melting motions to be wooed and passion boldly
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: rising in my breast, like rivers of the spring lets
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: loose its flood. End of section sixty eight Section sixty
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: nine of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Denise Ree French.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: Leave no servile little fear shall daunt my will this morning.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: I have courage stealed to say I will be lazy,
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: conqueringly still. I will not lose the hours in toil
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: this day, the roaring world, without careless of souls, shall
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: leave me to my placid dream of rest. My four
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: walls shield me from its shouting ghouls, and all its
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: hates have fled my quiet breast, and I will lull here, resting,
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: wide away, dead to the world of work, the world
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: of love. I lays contented just for dreaming sake, with
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: not the slightest urge to think or move. How tired
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: unto death, how tired I was now for a day.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: I put my burdens by, and like a child amidst
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: the meadow grass under the southern sun, I languid lie
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: and feel the bed about me kindly. Deep my strength
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: ooze gently from my hollow bones. My worried brain drifts
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: aimilessly to sleep, like softening to a song of tuneful tones.
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: End of section sixty nine, Section seventy of Harlem Shadows
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: by Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: Read by Denise Ray. Jasmin's Your scent is in the room.
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: Swiftly it overwhelms and conquers me. Jasmine's Night, Jasmines, perfect
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: of perfume, heavy with dew. Before the dawn of day,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: your face was in the mirror. I could see your
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: smile and vanish suddenly away, leaving behind the vestige of
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: a tear, sad, suffering face from parting grown So dear night, Jasmines,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: cannot bloom in this cold place without. The street is
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: wet and weird with snow. The cold new trees are
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: tossing to and fro. Too stormy is the night for
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: your fond face, for your low voice, too loud. The
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: wind's mad roar. But oh, your scent is here, jasmines
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: that grow luxuriant clustered round your cottage door. End of
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: section seventy section seventy one of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray, commemoration. When first your glory shone upon my face,
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: my body kindled to a mighty flame and burnt, you
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: yielded in my hot embrace until you swooned to love,
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: breathing my name, and wonder came and filled our night
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: of sleep like a new comet, crimsoning the sky, and
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: stillness like the stillness of the deep suspended lay as
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: an unuttered sigh. I never again shall feel your warm heart, flushed,
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: panting with passion, neked unto mine, until the throbbing world
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: around is hushed to quiet worship at our scented shrine.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: Nor will your glory seek my swarthy face to kindle
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: and to change my jaded frame into a miracle of
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: godlike grace, transfigured bathed in your immortal flame. End of
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: section seventy one, section seventy two of Harlem Shadows by
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: Claude Mackay. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: Red by Denise Ray memorial. Your body was a sacred cell,
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: always a jewel that grew dull in garish light, an
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: opal which, beneath my wandering gaze, gleamed rarely, softly, throbbing
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: in the night. I touched your flesh with reverential hands,
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: for you were sweet and timid, like a flower that
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: blossoms out of barren tropic sands, shedding is perfume. In
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: one golden hour, you yielded to my touch with gentle grace.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: And though my passion was a mighty wave that buried
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: you beneath its strong embrace, you were yet happy in
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: the moment's grave. Still more than passion consummate to me,
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: more than the nuptial's immemorial sung. Was the warm thrill
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: that melted me to see your clean, brown body, beautiful
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: and young, The joy in your maturity at length, the
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: peace that filled my soul like cooling wine when you
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: responded to my tender strength and press your heart exulting
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: into mine. How shall I, with such memories of you,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: in course of forms of love fruition find no I
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: would rather like a ghost pursue the fairy phantoms of
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: my lonely mind. End of section seventy two, section seventy
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: three of harlem Shadows by Mackay. This LibriVox recording is
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Red by Denise Ray. Thirst. My
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: spirit wails for water. Water now. My tongue is aching dry.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: My throat is hot for water, fresh rain shaken from
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: a bough, or dawn dews heavy in some leafy spot.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: My hungry body's burning for a swim in sunlit water
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: where the air is cool, as in Trout Valley, where
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: upon a limb the golden finch sings sweetly to the pool.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: Oh water, water, when the night is done, when day
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: steals gray white through the window pane, clear silver water.
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: When I wake alone, all impotent of parts of fevered brain,
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: Pure water from a forest fountain first to wash me,
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: lends me, and to quench my thirst. End of section
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: seventy three, section seventy four of Harlem's Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray. Futility, Oh, I have tried to laugh the
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: pain away. Let new flames brush my love springs like
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: a feather. But the old fever seizes me today as
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: sickness grips a soul in wretched weather. I have given
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: up myself to every urge, with not a care of
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: precious power spent. Have bared my body to the stranger's
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: scourge to soothe and deaden my heart's unhealing rent. But
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: you have worn a nerve out of my frame, a
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: gut that no physician can replace, and reft my life
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: of happiness and aim. Oh what new purpose shall I
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: now embrace? What substance? Hold? What lovely form? Pursue? When
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: my thought burns through everything to you? End of section
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: seventy four, Section seventy five of Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: Denise Ray Through Agony, Part one, All night, through the
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: eternity of night, pain was my portion, though I could
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: not feel deep in my humble heart, you round your
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: heel till I was reft of even my inner light,
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: till reason from my mind had taken flight, and all
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: my world went whirling in a reel, and all my
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: swarthy strength turned cold like steel, A passive mass beneath
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: your puny might. Last night I gave you triumph over me,
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: so I should be myself as once before I marveled
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: at your shallow mystery and haunted hungrily your temple door.
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: I gave you some and substance to be free. Oh,
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: you shall never triumph any more. Part two. I do
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: not fear to face the fact and say how darkly
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: dull my living hours have grown. My wounded heart sinks
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: heavier than stone. Because I loved you longer than a day.
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: I do not shame to turn myself away from beckoning
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: flowers beautifully blown to more in your vivid memory. Alone
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: in mountain fastnesses, austerilely gray, the mist will shroud me
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: on the utter height. The salty brimming waters of my
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: breast will mingle with the fresh dews of the night
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: to bathe my spirit hankering to rest. But after sleep
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: I'll wake with greater might once more, to venture on
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: the eternal quest. End of Section seventy five. End of
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: Harlem Shadows by Claude Mackay