Portrait of Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen was a prominent poet in the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen’s poem below constitutes a sort of literary self-portrait—an assertion of identity which we can compare to Goss’s painted representation of him.

“For a Poet”

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, And laid them away in a box of gold; Where long will cling the lips of the moth, I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth; I hide no hate; I am not even wroth Who found earth’s breath so keen and cold; I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, And laid them away in a box of gold.