Poem IndexFirst lines About

Young Prostitute

Langston Hughes (1901–1967) · The Weary Blues · 1923

Her dark brown face
Is like a withered flower
On a broken stem.
Those kind come cheap in Harlem
So they say.

Where this text comes from

First published in The Crisis (August 1923). Located in the bound Crisis volume 25–26 on disk (Archive.org crisis2526dubo): one of eight poems printed under the heading “Poems / Langston Hughes” on page 162 of the issue whose masthead reads Vol. 26 No. 4, August 1923, Whole No. 154, listed on that issue’s contents page as “Poems. Langston Hughes 162”. Collected in The Weary Blues (1926), which remains the text this record carries. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/langston-hughes_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (53)

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Weary_Blues
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001021002
https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/langston-hughes-fine-clothes-to-the-jew-1927-full-text.1
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003138045
https://archive.org/details/newnegrointerpre00unse
http://childlit.unl.edu/topics/edi.brownies.html
https://archive.org/details/the-brownies-book
https://archive.org/details/crisis2324dubo
https://archive.org/details/crisis2526dubo
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000502434
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1926-10_32_6
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-06_34_4
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-07_34_5
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-10_34_8
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1927-11_34_9
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1928-06_35_6
https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_the-crisis_1930-07_37_7
https://archive.org/details/hughes_ny_amsterdam_1923-04-25
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008956003
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006784879
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1925-03_3_27
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1925-06_3_30
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1926-05_4_41
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1926-10_4_46
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1927-03_5_3
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1927-06_5_6
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1927-12_5_12
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1930-06_8_6
https://archive.org/details/sim_opportunity-a-journal-of-negro-life_1930-12_8_12
https://archive.org/details/sim_political-affairs_1925-03_4_5
https://archive.org/details/sim_political-affairs_1925-04_4_6
https://archive.org/details/sim_political-affairs_1925-07_4_9
https://archive.org/details/langston_hughes_new_york_herald_tribune-1926-02-14
https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1926-03-01-001-single
https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1926-11-01-001-single
https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1927-02-01-001-single
https://archive.org/details/014-lnn-1928-10-01-001-single
https://archive.org/details/lincoln-university-yearbook-1928
https://archive.org/details/sim_vanity-fair_1926-05_26_3
https://books.google.com/books?id=2dsqAQAAIAAJ
https://archive.org/details/palms_october_1926
https://archive.org/details/langston_hughes_palms_november_1926
https://archive.org/details/sim_poetry_1926-11_29_2
https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v02n02-dec-1926-New-Masses
https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v03n10-feb-1928-New-Masses
https://archive.org/details/v01n05-sep-1926-New-Masses/v06n07-dec-1930-New-Masses
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000520354
https://archive.org/details/ebonytopazcollec00unse
https://archive.org/details/carolinamagazine19261927
https://archive.org/details/harlem-1928-11
https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes
https://www.poetrynook.com/poet/langston-hughes
https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/langston-hughes-poems-published-in-the-crisis-1921-1926

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L5.

Cite this poem

Langston Hughes (1901–1967). “Young Prostitute.” First published in The Crisis (August 1923). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/langston-hughes/young-prostitute/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Langston Hughes