The Heart of a Woman
by Georgia Douglas Johnson
The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o'er life's turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
Today's poem is in the public domain.
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About This Poem
The first poem in her volume of the same name, "The Heart of a Woman," imagines a type of feminist liberation through metaphor. Maya Angelou's fourth autobiography, The Heart of a Woman, takes its title from this Johnson poem. The 133rd anniversary of Johnson's birth is Tuesday.
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Work by Johnson
(Nabu Press, 2010)
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