Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Balimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
(Countee Cullen)
More Poetry from Countee Cullen:
- To John Keats, Poet, At Spring Time (Countee Cullen Poems)
- Thoughts In A Zoo (Countee Cullen Poems)
- Lines To My Father (Countee Cullen Poems)
- Karenge Ya Marenge (Countee Cullen Poems)
- She Of The Dancing Feet Sings (Countee Cullen Poems)
- Song In Spite Of Myself (Countee Cullen Poems)