Claude McKay’s speaker addresses someone who has just died, a friend and lover who lived in a Black urban neighborhood—the “Negro belt”—and endured poverty, racism, and exhausting work. The speaker says the dead person will no longer feel the city’s harshness, its bitterness, hate, and prejudice. Death is imagined as a safe retreat, a crossing of the sea into a longed-for port. There is grief in the sudden loss, but also a quiet, weary relief that the suffering is over. The tone is tender and elegiac, mixing personal sorrow with the consolation that the loved one has finally found rest. The final line, “my friend and lover,” makes the loss feel intimate and deeply felt.
Rest in Peace — Summary
No more for you the city’s thorny ways, The ugly corners of the Negro belt; The miseries and pains of these harsh days By you will never, never again be felt. No more, if still you wander, will you meet With nights of unabating bitterness; They cannot reach you in your safe retreat, The city’s hate, the city’s prejudice! ’Twas sudden--but your menial task is done, The dawn now breaks on you, the dark is over, The sea is crossed, the longed-for port is won; Farewell, oh, fare you well! my friend and lover.