Noliwe By Léopold Sédar Senghor

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The weakness of the heart is holy...

Ah! you think that I never loved her

My Negress fair with palm oil, 

slender as a plume 

Thighs of a startled otter, 

of Kilimanjaro snow

Breasts of mellow rice-fields, 

hills of acacias under the East Wind.

Noliwe with her arms of boas, 

lips of the adder 

Noliwe, her eyes were constellations... 

there is no need of moon or drum 

But her voice in my head and the feverous pulse of the  night...

Ah! you think that I never loved her! 

But these long years, 

this breaking on the wheel of the  years, 

this carcan strangling every act

This long night without sleep... 

I wandered like a mare from the Zambezi, 

running and rushing at the stars

Gnawed by a nameless suffering, 

like the leopards in the trap.

I would not have killed her if I had loved her less.

I had to escape from doubt

From the intoxication of the milk of her mouth, 

from the throbbing drum of the night of my blood 

From my bowels of fervent lava, 

from the uranium mines of my heart 

in the depths of my Blackness

From love of Noliwe 

From the love of my black-skinned People.

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