Love And Grief
Out of my heart, one treach'rous winter's day,
I locked young Love and threw the key away.
Grief, wandering widely, found the key,
And hastened with it, straightway, back to me,
With Love beside him. He unlocked the door
And bade Love enter with him there and stay.
And so the twain abide for evermore.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Changing Time
THE cloud looked in at the window,
And said to the day, 'Be dark!'
And the roguish rain tapped hard on the pane,
To stifle the song of the lark.
The wind sprang up in the tree tops
And shrieked with a voice of death,
But the rough-voiced breeze, that shook the trees,
Was touched with a violet's breath.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Chase
THE wind told the little leaves to hurry,
And chased them down the way,
While the mother tree laughed loud in glee,
For she thought her babes at play.
The cruel wind and the rain laughed loudly,
We'll bury them deep, they said,
And the old tree grieves, and the little leaves
Lie low, all chilled and dead.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Death
Storm and strife and stress,
Lost in a wilderness,
Groping to find a way,
Forth to the haunts of day
Sudden a vista peeps,
Out of the tangled deeps,
Only a point--the ray
But at the end is day.
Dark is the dawn and chill,
Daylight is on the hill,
Night is the flitting breath,
Day rides the hills of death.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Misapprehension
Out of my heart, one day, I wrote a song,
With my heart's blood imbued,
Instinct with passion, tremulously strong,
With grief subdued;
Breathing a fortitude
Pain-bought.
And one who claimed much love for what I wrought,
Read and considered it,
And spoke:
'Ay, brother,--'t is well writ,
But where's the joke?'
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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A Song (#3)
MY heart to thy heart,
My hand to thine;
My lips to thy lips,
Kisses are wine
Brewed for the lover in sunshine and shade;
Let me drink deep, then, my African maid.
Lily to lily,
Rose unto rose;
My love to thy love
Tenderly grows.
Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain,
Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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A Song (#3)
MY heart to thy heart,
My hand to thine;
My lips to thy lips,
Kisses are wine
Brewed for the lover in sunshine and shade;
Let me drink deep, then, my African maid.
Lily to lily,
Rose unto rose;
My love to thy love
Tenderly grows.
Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain,
Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Love's Chastening
Once Love grew bold and arrogant of air,
Proud of the youth that made him fresh and fair;
So unto Grief he spake, 'What right hast thou
To part or parcel of this heart?' Grief's brow
Was darkened with the storm of inward strife;
Thrice smote he Love as only he might dare,
And Love, pride purged, was chastened all his life.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Quilting
DOLLY sits a-quilting by her mother, stitch by stich,
Gracious, how my pulses throb, how my fingers itch,
While I note her dainty waist and her slender hand,
As she matches this and that, she stitches strand by strand.
And I long to tell her Life's a quilt and I'm a patch;
Love will do the stitching if she'll only be my match.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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A Prayer
O LORD, the hard-won miles
Have worn my stumbling feet:
Oh, soothe me with thy smiles,
And make my life complete.
The thorns were thick and keen
Where'er I trembling trod;
The way was long between
My wounded feet and God.
Where healing waters flow
Do thou my footsteps lead.
My heart is aching so;
Thy gracious balm I need
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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