A Black Pierrot

I am a black pierrot:
        She did not love me,
        So I crept away into the night
        And the night was black, too.

I am a black pierrot:
        She did not love me,
        So I wept until the red dawn
        Dripped blood over the eastern hills
        And my heart was bleeding, too.

I am a black pierrot:
        She did not love me,
        So with my once gay colored soul
        shrunken like a balloon without air,
        I went forth in the morning
        To seek a new brown love.

From The Weary Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926) by Langston Hughes. This poem is in the public domain.