Black Woman by Leopold Sedar Senghor

Black Woman

Naked woman, black woman

Clothed with your colour which is life, with your form
which is beauty!

In your shadow I have grown up; the gentleness of your
hands was laid over my eyes.

And now, high up on the sun-baked pass, at the heart
of summer, at the heart of noon, I come upon you, my
Promised Land,

And your beauty strikes me to the heart like the flash of
an eagle.

Naked woman, dark woman

Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures of black wine,
mouth making lyrical my mouth

Savannah stretching to clear horizons, savannah
shuddering beneath the East Wind's eager caresses

Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering under the
Conqueror's fingers
Your solemn contralto voice is the spiritual song of the
Beloved.

Naked woman, dark woman

Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the athlete's
flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the night
of your skin

Delights of the mind, the glinting of red gold against
your watered skin

Under the shadow of your hair, my care is lightened by
the neighbouring suns of your eyes.

Naked woman, black woman,
I sing your beauty that passes, the form that I fix in the
Eternal,

Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to feed the roots of life.

Leopold Sedar Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese Negritude poet and politician. He was the first president of Senegal. Senghor was born on 9th October 1906 in Joal , French West Africa (present-day Senegal) and died on 20th December 2001 in Verson , France.

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Noliwe by Leopold Sedar Senghor

Noliwe

The weakness of the heart is holly...
Ah! You think that I never loved her
My Negress fair with palmoil, slender as a plume
Thighs of a starlet otter, of Kilimanjaro snow
Breasts of mellow rice-fields, hills of acacias under the
East Wind.
Noliwe with her arms of boas, lips of the adder
Noliwe, her eyes were constellations there is no need of moon or drum
But her voice in my head and the feverous pulse of the night …
Ah! You think that I never loved her!
But these long years, this breaking on the wheel of the
years, this carcan strangling every act
This long night without sleep I wandered like a
mare from the Zambezi, running and rushing at the stars
Gnawed by a nameless suffering, like the leopards in the trap.
I would not have killed her if I had loved her less.
I had to escape from doubt
From the intoxication of the milk of her mouth, from
the throbbing drum of the night of my blood
From my bowels of fervent lava, from the uranium
mines of my heart in the depths of my Blackness
From love of Noliwe
From the love of my black skinned People.

Leopold Sedar Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese Negritude poet and politician. He was the first president of Senegal. Senghor was born on 9th October 1906 in Joal, French West Africa (present-day Senegal) and died on 20th December 2001 in Verson , France.

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I Will Pronounce Your Name by Léopold Sédar Senghor

I will pronounce your name, Naett, I will declaim you, Naett!
Naett, your name is mild like cinnamon, it is the fragrance in which the lemon grove sleeps
Naett, your name is the sugared clarity of blooming coffee trees
And it resembles the savannah, that blossoms forth under the masculine ardour of the midday sun
Name of dew, fresher than shadows of tamarind,
Fresher even than the short dusk, when the heat of the day is silenced,
Naett, that is the dry tornado, the hard clap of lightning
Naett, coin of gold, shining coal, you my night, my sun!…
I am you hero, and now I have become your sorcerer, in order to pronounce your names.
Princess of Elissa, banished from Futa on the fateful day.

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a Senegalese Negritude poet and politician. He was the first president of Senegal. Senghor was born on 9th October 1906 in Joal , French West Africa (present-day Senegal) and died on 20th December 2001 in Verson , France.