Summary

The poem begins with the speaker posing the following question: “What is Africa to me” (1). This is the first line of the opening stanza of the poem, and it is repeated to close the first stanza. Between this reiterated question are references to Africa’s “copper sun,” “scarlet sea,” “Strong bronzed men,” and “regal black Women” (1). These are the received scenes and figures that comprise a distant “Eden” for the speaker, who reminds himself and the reader that he is “centuries removed” from this land (1). He is thus invoking a sense of historical memory. But he is also insisting that there is something illusive about his connection to the land of Africa.

In the second stanza the nature of this predicament is made more explicit. The speaker elaborates on the scenes of Africans, “young forest lovers” amidst verbose descriptions of the natural flora and...