Read an automated transcript

After the Winter
by Claude McKay

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
      And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
      Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
     Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
     And wide-mouthed orchids smile.


And we will seek the quiet hill
      Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
      And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
      Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
      And ferns that never fade.