The Eastern Woodlands Fusion

Published under Fair Use

Our Land by Langston Hughes

We should have a land of sun,
Of gorgeous sun,
And a land of fragrant water
Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief
Of rose and gold,
And not this land
Where life is cold.

We should have a land of trees,
Of tall thick trees,
Bowed down with chattering parrots
Brilliant as the day,
And not this land where birds are gray.

Ah, we should have a land of joy,
Of love and joy and wine and song,
And not this land where joy is wrong.

“Our Land” appeared originally in The New Negro: An Interpretation, edited by Alain Locke (Albert and Charles Boni, 1925).

... from Poem-a-Day, the original daily poetry series publishing new work by contemporary poets.