The South by Langston Hughes — Read

The lazy, laughing South / With blood on its mouth.

The sunny-faced South, / Beast-strong, / Idiot-brained.

The child-minded South / Scratching in the dead fire's ashes / For a Negro's bones.

Cotton and the moon, / Warmth, earth, warmth, / The sky, the sun, the stars, / The magnolia-scented South.

Beautiful, like a woman, / Seductive as a dark-eyed whore, / Passionate, cruel, / Honey-lipped, syphilitic --

That is the South.

And I, who am black, would love her / But she spits in my face.

And I, who am black, / Would give her many rare gifts / But she turns her back upon me.

So now I seek the North --

The cold-faced North, / For she, they say, / Is a kinder mistress, / And in her house my children / May escape the spell of the South.