The Spanish Needle

Lovely dainty Spanish needle
  With your yellow flower and white,
Dew bedecked and softly sleeping,
  Do you think of me to-night?

Shadowed by the spreading mango,
  Nodding o'er the rippling stream,
Tell me, dear plant of my childhood,
  Do you of the exile dream?

Do you see me by the brook's side
  Catching crayfish 'neath the stone,
As you did the day you whispered:
  Leave the harmless dears alone?

Do you see me in the meadow
  Coming from the woodland spring
With a bamboo on my shoulder
  And a pail slung from a string?

Do you see me all expectant
  Lying in an orange grove,
While the swee-swees sing above me,
  Waiting for my elf-eyed love?

Lovely dainty Spanish needle,
  Source to me of sweet delight,
In your far-off sunny southland
  Do you dream of me to-night?
The Spanish Needle

by Claude McKay, 1922
