19 Poems by Angelina Weld Grimké on Love, Longing, & Race
By Skyler Gomez | On October 27, 2020 | Updated January 10, 2025 | Comments (5)
Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958) was an American playwright, poet, and educator best known as a figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Following is a selection of poems by Angelina Weld Grimké on love (and the longing for it), race, and nature.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Grimké was part of a family of Black, white, and mixed-race civil rights activists, and in earlier generations, abolitionists. Her father served some time as the Vice-President of the NAACP.
Her great-aunts (including the similarly named Angelina Grimké Weld) were well-known abolitionists and advocates for women’s rights in the 19th century. They were significant influences for Grimké’s use of literature as a propagandist tool.
With a mixed-race father and white mother, Grimké was 75% white, but she identified as Black. After her parents separated when she was a child, she was raised by her father in Boston, where she attended school. As a woman of color, she was deeply invested in issues affecting the African-American community.
After completing her studies, she moved to Washington D.C. where she began connecting with fellow poet Georgia Douglas Johnson. Shortly after, she wrote her first articles and poems about racism and the black experience in America. After her father’s death, which devastated her, she moved to New York City where she lived fairly reclusively until her death.
In Afro-American Women Writers (1988), Ann Allen Shockley wrote of Grimké’s poetic work:
The poems were conventional verses on nature, love, life, and death. She was considered an imagist poet in the mode of the “old lapidaries,” who wrote from her own private emotions about what she felt and saw in a sensitive, poignant, and beautiful way.
Gloria T. Hull, who exhumed Grimké from near literary oblivion, said of her work: “Grimké’s poetry is very delicate, musical, romantic, and pensive. It draws extensively on the natural world for allusions and figures of speech.” Hull found some of her unpublished poetry lesbian in nature. Of this, she wrote: “Most of these lyrics either chronicle a romance which is now dead or record a cruel and unrequited love.”
And Robert T. Kerlin wrote in Negro Poets & Their Poems, 1923):
“If hers should be called “Imagist” poetry or not I cannot say, but I am certain that more vivid imaging of objects has not been done in verse by any contemporary … Nor is there but a surface or formal beauty. There is passion, there is beauty of idea, the soul of lyric poetry is there as well as the form. I am weighing well my words in giving this praise, and I know that not one in the thousand of those who write good verse would deserve them.”
Most of the following poems were written in the 1920s. They were published in respected journals and anthologies of the time, and sometimes in multiple publications. These included Negro Poets and Their Poems (1923, see above); Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets (1927, edited by Countee Cullen);Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life; Carolina Magazine; and later in The Poetry of the Negro (1949; edited by Langston Hughes).
- To Keep the Memory of Charlotte Forten Grimké
- El Beso
- At the Spring Dawn
- A Winter Twilight
- For the Candle Light
- I Weep
- A Mona Lisa
- The Black Finger
- At April
- Tenebris
- The Eyes of My Regret
- Grass Fingers
- Hushed by the Hands of Sleep
- Greenness
- Your Hands
- Paradox
- Under the Days
- To Clarissa Scott Delaney
- Trees
. . . . . . . . . . .
To Keep the Memory of Charlotte Forten Grimké
Still are there wonders of the dark and day:
The muted shrilling of shy things at night,
So small beneath the stars and moon;
The peace, dream-frail, but perfect while the light
Lies softly on the leaves at noon.
These are, and these will be
Until eternity;
But she who loved them well has gone away.
Each dawn, while yet the east is veiléd grey,
The birds about her window wake and sing;
And far away, each day, some lark
I know is singing where the grasses swing;
Some robin calls and calls at dark.
These are, and these will be
Until eternity;
But she who loved them well has gone away.
The wild flowers that she loved down green ways stray;
Her roses lift their wistful buds at dawn,
But not for eyes that loved them best;
Only her little pansies are all gone,
Some lying softly on her breast.
And flowers will bud and be
Until eternity;
But she who loved them well has gone away.
Where has she gone? And who is there to say?
But this we know: her gentle spirit moves
And is where beauty never wanes,
Perchance by other streams, mid other groves;
And to us there, ah! she remains
A lovely memory
Until eternity;
She came, she loved, and then she went away.
(Negro Poets and Their Poems, 1923)
. . . . . . . . . .
El Beso
Twilight—and you,
Quiet—the stars;
Snare of the shine of your teeth,
Your provocative laughter,
The gloom of your hair;
Lure of you, eye and lip;
Yearning, yearning,
Languor, surrender;
Your mouth,
And madness, madness,
Tremulous, breathless, flaming,
The space of a sigh;
Then awakening—remembrance,
Pain, regret—your sobbing;
And again quiet—the stars,
Twilight—and you.
(Negro Poets and Their Poems, 1923)
. . . . . . . . . .
At the Spring Dawn
I watched the dawn come,
Watched the spring dawn come.
And the red sun shouldered his way up
Through the grey, through the blue,
Through the lilac mists.
The quiet of it! The goodness of it!
And one bird awoke, sang, whirred
A blur of moving black against the sun,
Sang again—afar off.
And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun,
Stretched to my finger tips,
And I laughed.
Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love,
At the dawn,
At the spring dawn.
(Negro Poets and Their Poems, 1923)
. . . . . . . . . .
A Winter Twilight
A silence slipping around like death,
Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh,
a breath; One group of trees, lean,
naked and cold,
Inking their cress ‘gainst a
sky green-gold;
One path that knows where the
corn flowers were;
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;
And over it softly leaning down,
One star that I loved ere the
fields went brown.
(Negro Poets and Their Poems, 1923)
. . . . . . . . . .
The Black Finger
I have just seen a beautiful thing
Slim and still,
Against a gold, gold sky,
A straight cypress,
Sensitive
Exquisite,
A black finger
Pointing upwards.
Why, beautiful, still finger are you black?
And why are you pointing upwards?
(Opportunity, November 1923; Analysis of “The Black Finger”)
. . . . . . . . . .
For the Candle-Light
The sky was blue, so blue that day
And each daisy white, so white,
O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey
And night again be night . . . . .
I knew, I knew. Well, if night is night,
And the grey skies greyly cry.
I have in a book for the candle light,
A daisy dead and dry.
(Opportunity, March 1925)
. . . . . . . . . .
I Weep
— I weep —
Not as the young do noisily,
Not as the aged rustily,
But quietly.
Drop by drop the great tears
Splash upon my hands,
And save you saw them shine,
You would not know
I wept.
(Opportunity, July 1924)
. . . . . . . . . .
A Mona Lisa
I should like to creep
Through the long brown grasses
That are your lashes;
I should like to poise
On the very brink
Of the leaf-brown pools
That are your shadowed eyes;
I should like to cleave without sound,
Their glimmering waters,
Their unrippled waters,
I should like to sink down
And down and down …
And deeply drown.
2.
Would I be more than a bubble of breaking?
Or an ever widening circle
Ceasing at the marge?
Would my white bones
Be the only white bones,
Wavering back-and-forth, back-and-forth
In their depths?
(Caroling Dusk, 1927)
. . . . . . . . . .
At April
Toss your gay heads,
Brown girl trees;
Toss your gay lovely heads;
Shake your brown slim bodies;
Stretch your brown slim arms;
Stretch your brown slim toes.
Who knows better than we,
With the dark, dark bodies,
What it means
When April comes a-laughing and a-weeping
Once again
At our hearts?
(Opportunity, March 1925)
. . . . . . . . . .
Tenebris
There is a tree, by day,
That, at night, Has a shadow,
A hand huge and black,
With fingers long and black.
All through the dark,
Against the white man’s house,
In the little wind,
The black hand plucks and plucks
At the bricks.
The bricks are the color of blood
and very small.
Is it a black hand,
Or is it a shadow?
(Caroling Dusk, 1927; analysis of “Tenebris”)
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
The Eyes Of My Regret
Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,
The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path
To the same well-worn rock;
The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun
The same tints, – rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey
Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;
Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to
a point;
Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,
Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,
Watching, watching, watching me;
The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will
dusk after dusk;
The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the
night, chin on knees
Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly miserable,
—The eyes of my Regret.
(Caroling Dusk, 1927; Analysis of “The Eyes of My Regret”
. . . . . . . . . .
You may also like:
12 Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance to Rediscover and Read
. . . . . . . . . . .
Grass Fingers
Touch me, touch me,
Little cool grass fingers,
Elusive, delicate grass fingers.
With your shy brushings,
Touch my face—
My naked arms—
My thighs—
My feet.
Is there nothing that is kind?
You need not fear me.
Soon I shall be too far beneath you,
For you to reach me, even,
With your tiny, timorous toes.
(Caroling Dusk, 1927)
. . . . . . . . . . .
Hushed by the Hands Of Sleep
(To Dr. George F. Grant)
Hushed by the hands of Sleep,
By the beautiful hands of Sleep.
Very gentle and quiet he lies,
With a little smile of sweet surprise,
Just softly hushed at lips and eyes,
Hushed by the hands of Sleep,
By the beautiful hands of Sleep.
Hushed by the hands of Sleep,
By the beautiful hands of Sleep.
Death leaned down as his eyes grew dim,
But oh! it was beautiful to him.
Hushed by the hands of Sleep,
By the beautiful hands of Sleep.
(Caroling Dusk, 1927)
. . . . . . . . . .
Greenness
Tell me is there anything lovelier,
Anything more quieting
Than the green of little blades of grass
And the green of little leaves?
Is not each leaf a cool green hand,
Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger,
Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?
(Caroling Dusk, 1927)
. . . . . . . . . .
Your Hands
I love your hands:
They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands;
Hair grows on the back near the wrist . . . .
I have seen the nails broken and stained
From hard work.
And yet, when you touch me,
I grow small . . . . . . . and quiet . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . And happy . . . . . . . .
If I might only grow small enough
To curl up into the hollow of your palm,
Your left palm,
Curl up, lie close and cling,
So that I might know myself always there,
. . . . . . . Even if you forgot.
(Caroling Dusk, 1927)
. . . . . . . . . .
Paradox
When face to face we stand
And eye to eye,
How far apart we are —
As far, they say, as God can ever be
From what, they say, is Hell.
But, when we stand
Fronting the other,
Mile after mile slipping in between,
O, close we are,
As close as is the shadow to the body,
As breath, to life, ……..
As kisses are to love.
(Caroling Dusk, 1927; The Carolina Magazine, May 1927)
. . . . . . . . . .
Under the Days
The days fall upon me;
One by one, they fall,
Like leaves. . . .
They are black,
They are grey.
They are white;
They are shot through with gold and fire.
They fall,
They fall
Ceaselessly.
They cover me,
They crush,
They smother.
Who will ever find me
Under the days?
(The Carolina Magazine, May 1927)
. . . . . . . . . .
To Clarissa Scott Delaney
She has not found herself a hard pillow
And a long hard bed,
A chilling cypress, a wan willow
For her gay young head…
These are for the dead.
Does the violet-lidded twilight die
And the piercing dawn
And the white clear moon and the night- blue sky. . .
When they are gone?
Does the shimmering note
In the shy, shy throat
Of the swaying bird?
O, does children’s laughter
Live not after
It is heard?
Does the dear, dear shine upon dear, dear things,
In the eyes, on the hair,
On waters, on wings.
Live no more anywhere?
Does the tang of the sea, the breath of frail flowers,
Of fern crushed, of clover,
Of grasses at dark, of the earth after showers
Not linger, not hover?
Does the beryl in tarns, the soft orchid in haze,
The primrose through tree-tops, the unclouded jade
Of the north sky, all earth’s flamings and russets and grays
Simply smudge out and fade?
And all loveliness, all sweetness, all grace,
All the gay questing, all wonder, all dreaming,
They that cup beauty that veiled opaled vase,
Are they only the soul of a seeming?
O, hasn’t she found just a little, thin door
And passed through and closed it between?
O, aren’t those her light feet upon that light floor,
… That her laughter? . . . O, doesn’t she lean
As we do to listen? . . . O, doesn’t it mean
She is only unseen, unseen?
(Ebony and Topaz, 1927; a note– Clarissa Scott Delaney was another poet of note in the Harlem Renaissance era. She died in 1927 at the age of twenty-six)
. . . . . . . . . .
Trees
God made them very beautiful, the trees:
He spoke and gnarled of bole or silken sleek
They grew; majestic bowed or very meek;
Huge-bodied, slim; sedate and full of glees.
And He had pleasure deep in all of these.
And to them soft and little tongues to speak
Of Him to us, He gave wherefore they seek
From dawn to dawn to bring unto our knees.
Yet here amid the wistful sounds of leaves,
A black-hued gruesome something swings and swings;
Laughter it knew and joy in little things
Till man’s hate ended all. -And so man weaves.
And God, how slow, how very slow weaves He-
Was Christ Himself not nailed to a tree?
(The Carolina Magazine, May 1928; Analysis of “Trees”)
. . . . . . . . . .
Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors.
Brilliant poems! She was a genuine genius! Rest in peace, magnificent poet and playwright Ms. Angelina Weld Grimke!
Lovely article. I am a poet. I have got so many information about the poet Angelina Weld Grimké from your article. I have an website on literature in Bengali Language. I want to write about her and translate the poem in Bengali Language. Kindly tell me whether there will be any copyright problem or I can go ahead easily.
Thank you, Dipak. I believe that Angelina’s poems are all in the public domain so there should be no problem!
I was wondering – do you have any resources/information on the copyrights surrounding Angelina Weld Grimke’s work? I am a composer and I am hoping to set Trees, The Black Finger, and Tenebris to music. I have been (so far unsuccessfully) scouring the Internet for the dates of publication of these particular poems to see if they are public domain, and if they are not, for contact information for the copyright holder of these works so that I can reach out through the appropriate avenues to make an arrangement. Please feel free to reply or contact me directly if you think you might be able to help – thanks!!
Omar, what a beautiful idea. It also gave me the idea that I should put dates on the poems when I can find them, and links to analyses, as there’s much to say about her poetry. As far as I could tell The Black Finger is dated 1923, which means that it’s in the public domain; Tenebris is 1927 which means it’s almost in the public domain; and I couldn’t verify Trees. All these poems are all over the internet, which pretty much points to the idea that there’s no rights holder. AWG had no children, and so probably no heirs, and most of her significant poetry was produced in the 1920s. If it were me, I’d feel safe about setting her poems to music, but you need to do what’s best for your comfort zone. Meanwhile, thanks for reaching out, and I’ll be working on updating this post very soon!