A New Kind of Literary Pulse

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Classics African American Literature 20th Century  1 min

The Heart of a Woman

Georgia Douglas Johnson

Georgia Douglas Johnson

A figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Georgia Douglas Johnson wrote plays, a syndicated newspaper column, and four collections of poetry: The Heart of a Woman (1918), Bronze (1922), An Autumn Love Cycle (1928), and Share My World (1962).

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roamIn the wake of those echoes the heart calls home. The heart of a woman falls back with the night,And enters some alien cage in its plight,And tries to forget it has dreamed of the starsWhile it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.