February 27, 2021

My Loves

Langston Hughes

I love to see the big white moon,
A-shining in the sky;
I love to see the little stars,
When the shadow clouds go by.

I love the rain drops falling
On my roof-top in the night;
I love the soft wind’s sighing,
Before the dawn’s gray light.

I love the deepness of the blue,
In my Lord’s heaven above;
But better than all these things I think,
I love my lady love.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 27, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“My Loves” originally appeared in the May 1922 issue of The Crisis.

Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. A powerful figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes is the author of several poetry collections, prose, and plays, including The Weary Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), Shakespeare in Harlem (Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), I Wonder as I Wander (Rinehart, 1956), and others. He died on May 22, 1967, in New York City.

The Weary Blues
(Knopf Publishing Group, 2015)

“Your Soul and Mine” by Fenton Johnson
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“A Negro Love Song” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Thanks to Rachel Eliza Griffiths, author of Seeing the Body (W. W. Norton, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A about Griffiths’ curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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My Loves

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