Quote of the Day (Claude McKay, on Easter)

“Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly

My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,

Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily

Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!

Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,

It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief

In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,

And some called it the resurrection flower;

And I, a pagan, worshipped at its shrine,

Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.”—African-American poet Claude McKay (1890-1948), “The Easter Flower,” in Harlem Shadows (1921)