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						The Easter Flower by Claude McKay 
						
						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, worshiped at its shrine,  Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power. 						 
						
						
						
						
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