The Cross

by Georgia Douglas Johnson

All day the world’s mad mocking strife,
The venomed prick of probing knife,
The baleful, subtle leer of scorn
That rims the world from morn to morn,
While reptile-visions writhe and creep
Into the very arms of sleep
To quench the fitful burnished gleams:
A crucifixion in my dreams!

_{From Bronze (1922), by Georgia Douglas Johnson.}