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Selections from
Lyrics of the Hearthside
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[1899]
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- IN THIS old garden, fair, I walk to-day
- Heart-charmed with all the beauty of the scene:
- The rich, luxuriant grasses' cooling green,
- The wall's environ, ivy-decked and gray,
- The waving branches with the wind at play,
- The slight and tremulous blooms that show between,
- Sweet all: and yet my yearning heart doth lean
- Toward Love's Egyptian fleshpots far away.
- Beside the wall, the slim Laburnum grows
- And flings its golden flow'rs to every breeze.
- But e'en among such soothing sights as these,
- I pant and nurse my soul-devouring woes.
- Of all the longings that our hearts wot of,
- There is no hunger like the want of love!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- I SIT upon the old sea wall,
- And watch the shimmering sea,
- Where soft and white the moonbeams fall,
- Till, in a fantasy,
- Some pure white maiden's funeral pall
- The strange light seems to me.
- The waters break upon the shore
- And shiver at my feet,
- While I dream old dreams o'er and o'er,
- And dim old scenes repeat;
- Tho' all have dreamed the same before,
- They still seem new and sweet.
- The waves still sing the same old song
- That knew an elder time;
- The breakers' beat is not more strong,
- Their music more sublime;
- And poets thro' the ages long
- Have set these notes to rhyme.
- But this shall not deter my lyre,
- Nor check my simple strain;
- If I have not the old-time fire,
- I know the ancient pain:
- The hurt of unfulfilled desire,--
- The ember quenched by rain.
- I know the softly shining sea
- That rolls this gentle swell
- Has snarled and licked its tongues at me
- And bared its fangs as well;
- That 'neath its smile so heavenly,
- There lurks the scowl of hell!
- But what of that? I strike my string
- (For songs in youth are sweet);
- I 'll wait and hear the waters bring
- Their loud resounding beat;
- Then, in her own bold numbers sing
- The Ocean's dear deceit!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- LOVE hath the wings of the butterfly,
- Oh, clasp him but gently,
- Pausing and dipping and fluttering by
- Inconsequently.
- Stir not his poise with the breath of a sigh;
- Love hath the wings of the butterfly.
- Love hath the wings of the eagle bold,
- Cling to him strongly--
- What if the look of the world be cold,
- And life go wrongly?
- Rest on his pinions, for broad is their fold;
- Love hath the wings of the eagle bold.
- Love hath the voice of the nightingale,
- Hearken his trilling--
- List to his song when the moonlight is pale,--
- Passionate, thrilling.
- Cherish the lay, ere the lilt of it fail;
- Love hath the voice of the nightingale.
- Love hath the voice of the storm at night,
- Wildly defiant.
- Hear him and yield up your soul to his might,
- Tenderly pliant.
- None shall regret him who heed him aright;
- Love hath the voice of the storm at night.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- SHE sang, and I listened the whole song thro'.
- (It was sweet, so sweet, the singing.)
- The stars were out and the moon it grew
- From a wee soft glimmer way out in the blue
- To a bird thro' the heavens winging.
- She sang, and the song trembled down to my breast,--
- (It was sweet, so sweet the singing.)
- As a dove just out of its fledgling nest,
- And, putting its wings to the first sweet test,
- Flutters homeward so wearily winging.
- She sang and I said to my heart "That song,
- That was sweet, so sweet i' the singing,
- Shall live with us and inspire us long,
- And thou, my heart, shalt be brave and strong
- For the sake of those words a-winging."
- The woman died and the song was still.
- (It was sweet, so sweet, the singing.)
- But ever I hear the same low trill,
- Of the song that shakes my heart with a thrill,
- And goes forever winging.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- A LITTLE dreaming by the way,
- A little toiling day by day;
- A little pain, a little strife,
- A little joy,--and that is life.
- A little short-lived summer's morn,
- When joy seems all so newly born,
- When one day's sky is blue above,
- And one bird sings,--and that is love.
- A little sickening of the years,
- The tribute of a few hot tears
- Two folded hands, the failing breath,
- And peace at last,--and that is death.
- Just dreaming, loving, dying so,
- The actors in the drama go--
- A flitting picture on a wall,
- Love, Death, the themes; but is that all?
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- SHE told the story, and the whole world wept
- At wrongs and cruelties it had not known
- But for this fearless woman's voice alone.
- She spoke to consciences that long had slept:
- Her message, Freedom's clear reveille, swept
- From heedless hovel to complacent throne.
- Command and prophecy were in the tone
- And from its sheath the sword of justice leapt.
- Around two peoples swelled a fiery wave,
- But both came forth transfigured from the flame.
- Blest be the hand that dared be strong to save,
- And blest be she who in our weakness came--
- Prophet and priestess! At one stroke she gave
- A race to freedom and herself to fame.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- IN A small and lonely cabin out of noisy traffic's way,
- Sat an old man, bent and feeble, dusk of face, and hair of gray,
- And beside him on the table, battered, old, and worn as he,
- Lay a banjo, droning forth this reminiscent melody:
- "Night is closing in upon us, friend of mine, but don't be sad;
- Let us think of all the pleasures and the joys that we have had.
- Let us keep a merry visage, and be happy till the last,
- Let the future still be sweetened with the honey of the past.
- "For I speak to you of summer nights upon the yellow sand,
- When the Southern moon was sailing high and silvering all the land;
- And if love tales were not sacred, there's a tale that I could tell
- Of your many nightly wanderings with a dusk and lovely belle.
- "And I speak to you of care-free songs when labour's hour was o'er,
- And a woman waiting for your step outside the cabin door,
- And of something roly-poly that you took upon your lap,
- While you listened for the stumbling, hesitating words, 'Pap, pap.'
- "I could tell you of a 'possum hunt across the wooded grounds,
- I could call to mind the sweetness of the baying of the hounds,
- You could lift me up and smelling of the timber that 's in me,
- Build again a whole green forest with the mem'ry of a tree.
- "So the future cannot hurt us while we keep the past in mind,
- What care I for trembling fingers,--what care you that you are blind?
- Time may leave us poor and stranded, circumstance may make us bend;
- But they 'll only find us mellower, won't they, comrade?--in the end."
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- IN THE silence of my heart,
- I will spend an hour with thee,
- When my love shall rend apart
- All the veil of mystery:
- All that dim and misty veil
- That shut in between our souls
- When Death cried, "Ho, maiden, hail!"
- And your barque sped on the shoals.
- On the shoals? Nay, wrongly said.
- On the breeze of Death that sweeps
- Far from life, thy soul has sped
- Out into unsounded deeps.
- I shall take an hour and come
- Sailing, darling, to thy side.
- Wind nor sea may keep me from
- Soft communings with my bride.
- I shall rest my head on thee
- As I did long days of yore,
- When a calm, untroubled sea
- Rocked thy vessel at the shore.
- I shall take thy hand in mine,
- And live o'er the olden days
- When thy smile to me was wine,--
- Golden wine thy word of praise,
- For the carols I had wrought
- In my soul's simplicity;
- For the petty beads of thought
- Which thine eyes alone could see.
- Ah, those eyes, love-blind, but keen
- For my welfare and my weal!
- Tho' the grave-door shut between,
- Still their love-lights o'er me steal.
- I can see thee thro' my tears,
- As thro' rain we see the sun.
- What tho' cold and cooling years
- Shall their bitter courses run,--
- I shall see thee still and be
- Thy true lover evermore,
- And thy face shall be to me
- Dear and helpful as before.
- Death may vaunt and Death may boast,
- But we laugh his pow'r to scorn;
- He is but a slave at most,--
- Night that heralds coming morn.
- I shall spend an hour with thee
- Day by day, my little bride.
- True love laughs at mystery,
- Crying, "Doors of Death, fly wide."
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- I AM the mother of sorrows,
- I am the ender of grief;
- I am the bud and the blossom,
- I am the late-falling leaf.
- I am thy priest and thy poet,
- I am thy serf and thy king;
- I cure the tears of the heartsick,
- When I come near they shall sing.
- White are my hands as the snowdrop;
- Swart are my fingers as clay;
- Dark is my frown as the midnight,
- Fair is my brow as the day.
- Battle and war are my minions,
- Doing my will as divine;
- I am the calmer of passions,
- Peace is a nursling of mine.
- Speak to me gently or curse me,
- Seek me or fly from my sight;
- I am thy fool in the morning,
- Thou art my slave in the night.
- Down to the grave I will take thee,
- Out from the noise of the strife,
- Then shalt thou see me and know me--
- Death, then, no longer, but life.
- Then shalt thou sing at my coming,
- Kiss me with passionate breath,
- Clasp me and smile to have thought me
- Aught save the foeman of death.
- Come to me, brother, when weary,
- Come when thy lonely heart swells;
- I'll guide thy footsteps and lead thee
- Down where the Dream Woman dwells.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- I KNOW what the caged bird feels, alas!
- When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
- When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
- And the river flows like a stream of glass;
- When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
- And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
- I know what the caged bird feels!
- I know why the caged bird beats his wing
- Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
- For he must fly back to his perch and cling
- When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
- And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
- And they pulse again with a keener sting--
- I know why he beats his wing!
- I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
- When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
- When he beats his bars and he would be free;
- It is not a carol of joy or glee,
- But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
- But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
- I know why the caged bird sings!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- THERE is a heaven, for ever, day by day,
- The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so.
- There is a hell, I'm quite as sure; for pray
- If there were not, where would my neighbours go?
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- "I AM but clay," the sinner plead,
- Who fed each vain desire.
- "Not only clay," another said,
- "But worse, for thou art mire."
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- THEY please me not-- these solemn songs
- That hint of sermons covered up.
- 'T is true the world should heed its wrongs,
- But in a poem let me sup,
- Not simples brewed to cure or ease
- Humanity's confessed disease,
- But the spirit-wine of a singing line,
- Or a dew-drop in a honey cup!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- AYE, lay him in his grave, the old dead year!
- His life is lived--fulfilled his destiny.
- Have you for him no sad, regretful tear
- To drop beside the cold, unfollowed bier?
- Can you not pay the tribute of a sigh?
- Was he not kind to you, this dead old year?
- Did he not give enough of earthly store?
- Enough of love, and laughter, and good cheer?
- Have not the skies you scanned sometimes been clear?
- How, then, of him who dies, could you ask more?
- It is not well to hate him for the pain
- He brought you, and the sorrows manifold.
- To pardon him these hurts still I am fain;
- For in the panting period of his reign,
- He brought me new wounds, but he healed the old.
- One little sigh for thee, my poor, dead friend--
- One little sigh while my companions sing.
- Thou art so soon forgotten in the end;
- We cry e'en as thy footsteps downward tend:
- "The king is dead! long live the king!"
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- THE sun has slipped his tether
- And galloped down the west.
- (Oh, it's weary, weary waiting, love.)
- The little bird is sleeping
- In the softness of its nest.
- Night follows day, day follows dawn,
- And so the time has come and gone:
- And it's weary, weary waiting, love.
- The cruel wind is rising
- With a whistle and a wail.
- (And it's weary, weary waiting, love.)
- My eyes are seaward straining
- For the coming of a sail;
- But void the sea, and void the beach
- Far and beyond where gaze can reach!
- And it's weary, weary waiting, love.
- I heard the bell-buoy ringing--
- How long ago it seems!
- (Oh, it's weary, weary waiting, love.)
- And ever still, its knelling
- Crashes in upon my dreams.
- The banns were read, my frock was sewn;
- Since then two seasons' winds have blown--
- And it's weary, weary waiting, love.
- The stretches of the ocean
- Are bare and bleak to-day.
- (Oh, it's weary, weary waiting, love.)
- My eyes are growing dimmer--
- Is it tears, or age, or spray?
- But I will stay till you come home.
- Strange ships come in across the foam!
- But it's weary, weary waiting, love.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- AH, YES, the chapter ends to-day;
- We even lay the book away;
- But oh, how sweet the moments sped
- Before the final page was read!
- We tried to read between the lines
- The Author's deep-concealed designs;
- But scant reward such search secures;
- You saw my heart and I saw yours.
- The Master,--He who penned the page
- And bade us read it,--He is sage:
- And what he orders, you and I
- Can but obey, nor question why.
- We read together and forgot
- The world about us. Time was not.
- Unheeded and unfelt, it fled.
- We read and hardly knew we read.
- Until beneath a sadder sun,
- We came to know the book was done.
- Then, as our minds were but new lit,
- It dawned upon us what was writ;
- And we were startled. In our eyes,
- Looked forth the light of great surprise.
- Then as a deep-toned tocsin tolls,
- A voice spoke forth: "Behold your souls!"
- I do, I do. I cannot look
- Into your eyes: so close the book.
- But brought it grief or brought it bliss,
- No other page shall read like this!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- DREAM on, for dreams are sweet:
- Do not awaken!
- Dream on, and at thy feet
- Pomegranates shall be shaken.
- Who likeneth the youth
- Of life to morning?
- 'Tis like the night in truth,
- Rose-coloured dreams adorning.
- The wind is soft above,
- The shadows umber.
- (There is a dream called Love.)
- Take thou the fullest slumber!
- In Lethe's soothing stream,
- Thy thirst thou slakest.
- Sleep, sleep; 't is sweet to dream.
- Oh, weep when thou awakest!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- LOVE me. I care not what the circling years
- To me may do.
- If, but in spite of time and tears,
- You prove but true.
- Love me--albeit grief shall dim mine eyes,
- And tears bedew,
- I shall not e'en complain, for then my skies
- Shall still be blue.
- Love me, and though the winter snow shall pile,
- And leave me chill,
- Thy passion's warmth shall make for me, meanwhile,
- A sun-kissed hill.
- And when the days have lengthened into years,
- And I grow old,
- Oh, spite of pains and griefs and cares and fears,
- Grow thou not cold.
- Then hand and hand we shall pass up the hill,
- I say not down;
- That twain go up, of love, who 've loved their fill,--
- To gain love's crown.
- Love me, and let my life take up thine own,
- As sun the dew.
- Come, sit, my queen, for in my heart a throne
- Awaits for you!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- GOOD-NIGHT, my love, for I have dreamed of thee
- In waking dreams, until my soul is lost--
- Is lost in passion's wide and shoreless sea,
- Where, like a ship, unruddered, it is tost
- Hither and thither at the wild waves' will.
- There is no potent Master's voice to still
- This newer, more tempestuous Galilee!
- The stormy petrels of my fancy fly
- In warning course across the darkening green,
- And, like a frightened bird, my heart doth cry
- And seek to find some rock of rest between
- The threatening sky and the relentless wave.
- It is not length of life that grief doth crave,
- But only calm and peace in which to die.
- Here let me rest upon this single hope,
- For oh, my wings are weary of the wind,
- And with its stress no more may strive or cope.
- One cry has dulled mine ears, mine eyes are blind,--
- Would that o'er all the intervening space,
- I might fly forth and see thee face to face.
- I fly; I search, but, love, in gloom I grope.
- Fly home, far bird, unto thy waiting nest;
- Spread thy strong wings above the wind-swept sea.
- Beat the grim breeze with thy unruffled breast
- Until thou sittest wing to wing with me.
- Then, let the past bring up its tales of wrong;
- We shall chant low our sweet connubial song,
- Till storm and doubt and past no more shall be!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- THE smell of the sea in my nostrils,
- The sound of the sea in mine ears;
- The touch of the spray on my burning face,
- Like the mist of reluctant tears.
- The blue of the sky above me,
- The green of the waves beneath;
- The sun flashing down on a gray-white sail
- Like a scimitar from its sheath.
- And ever the breaking billows,
- And ever the rocks' disdain;
- And ever a thrill in mine inmost heart
- That my reason cannot explain.
- So I say to my heart, "Be silent,
- The mystery of time is here;
- Death's way will be plain when we fathom the main,
- And the secret of life be clear."
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- OH, SUMMER has clothed the earth
- In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
- And a mantle, too, of the skies' soft blue,
- And a belt where the rivers run.
- And now for the kiss of the wind,
- And the touch of the air's soft hands,
- With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
- With the freedom of lakes and lands.
- I envy the farmer's boy
- Who sings as he follows the plow;
- While the shining green of the young blades lean
- To the breezes that cool his brow.
- He sings to the dewy morn,
- No thought of another's ear;
- But the song he sings is a chant for kings
- And the whole wide world to hear.
- He sings of the joys of life,
- Of the pleasures of work and rest,
- From an o'erfull heart, without aim or art;
- 'T is a song of the merriest.
- O ye who toil in the town,
- And ye who moil in the mart,
- Hear the artless song, and your faith made strong
- Shall renew your joy of heart.
- Oh, poor were the worth of the world
- If never a song were heard,--
- If the sting of grief had no relief,
- And never a heart were stirred.
- So, long as the streams run down,
- And as long as the robins trill,
- Let us taunt old Care with a merry air,
- And sing in the face of ill.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- I HAVE no fancy for that ancient cant
- That makes us masters of our destinies,
- And not our lives, to hold or give them up
- As will directs; I cannot, will not think
- That men, the subtle worms, who plot and plan
- And scheme and calculate with such shrewd wit,
- Are such great blund'ring fools as not to know
- When they have lived enough. Men court not death
- When there are sweets still left in life to taste.
- Nor will a brave man choose to live when he,
- Full deeply drunk of life, has reached the dregs,
- And knows that now but bitterness remains.
- He is the coward who, outfaced in this,
- Fears the false goblins of another life.
- I honor him who being much harassed
- Drinks of sweet courage until drunk of it,--
- Then seizing Death, reluctant, by the hand,
- Leaps with him, fearless, to eternal peace!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- COME, essay a sprightly measure,
- Tuned to some light song of pleasure.
- Maidens, let your brows be crowned
- As we foot this merry round.
- From the ground a voice is singing,
- From the sod a soul is springing.
- Who shall say 't is but a clod
- Quick'ning upward toward its God?
- Who shall say it? Who may know it,
- That the clod is not a poet
- Waiting but a gleam to waken
- In a spirit music-shaken?
- Phyllis, Phyllis, why be waiting?
- In the woods the birds are mating.
- From the tree beside the wall,
- Hear the am'rous robin call.
- Listen to yon thrush's trilling;
- Phyllis, Phyllis, are you willing,
- When love speaks from cave and tree,
- Only we should silent be?
- When the year, itself renewing,
- All the world with flowers is strewing,
- Then through Youth's Arcadian land,
- Love and song go hand in hand.
- Come, unfold your vocal treasure,
- Sing with me a nuptial measure,--
- Let this springtime gambol be
- Bridal dance for you and me.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- NIGHT is for sorrow and dawn is for joy,
- Chasing the troubles that fret and annoy;
- Darkness for sighing and daylight for song,--
- Cheery and chaste the strain, heartfelt and strong.
- All the night through, though I moan in the dark,
- I wake in the morning to sing with the lark.
- Deep in the midnight the rain whips the leaves,
- Softly and sadly the wood-spirit grieves.
- But when the first hue of dawn tints the sky,
- I shall shake out my wings like the birds and be dry;
- And though, like the rain-drops, I grieved through the dark,
- I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark.
- On the high hills of heaven, some morning to be,
- Where the rain shall not grieve thro' the leaves of the tree,
- There my heart will be glad for the pain I have known,
- For my hand will be clasped in the hand of mine own;
- And though life has been hard and death's pathway been dark,
- I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- OVER the hills and the valleys of dreaming
- Slowly I take my way.
- Life is the night with its dream-visions teeming,
- Death is the waking at day.
- Down thro' the dales and the bowers of loving,
- Singing, I roam afar.
- Daytime or night-time, I constantly roving,--
- Dearest one, thou art my star.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- WHEN I was young I longed for Love,
- And held his glory far above
- All other earthly things. I cried:
- "Come, Love, dear Love, with me abide;"
- And with my subtlest art I wooed,
- And eagerly the wight pursued.
- But Love was gay and Love was shy,
- He laughed at me and passed me by.
- Well, I grew old and I grew gray,
- When Wealth came wending down my way.
- I took his golden hand with glee,
- And comrades from that day were we.
- Then Love came back with doleful face,
- And prayed that I would give him place.
- But, though his eyes with tears were dim,
- I turned my back and laughed at him.
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- ASHES to ashes, dust unto dust,
- What of his loving, what of his lust?
- What of his passion, what of his pain?
- What of his poverty, what of his pride?
- Earth, the great mother, has called him again:
- Deeply he sleeps, the world's verdict defied.
- Shall he be tried again? Shall he go free?
- Who shall the court convene? Where shall it be?
- No answer on the land, none from the sea.
- Only we know that as he did, we must:
- You with your theories, you with your trust,--
- Ashes to ashes, dust unto dust!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- THE snow lies deep upon the ground,
- And winter's brightness all around
- Decks bravely out the forest sere,
- With jewels of the brave old year.
- The coasting crowd upon the hill
- With some new spirit seems to thrill;
- And all the temple bells achime.
- Ring out the glee of Christmas time.
- In happy homes the brown oak-bough
- Vies with the red-gemmed holly now;
- And here and there, like pearls, there show
- The berries of the mistletoe.
- A sprig upon the chandelier
- Says to the maidens, "Come not here!"
- Even the pauper of the earth
- Some kindly gift has cheered to mirth!
- Within his chamber, dim and cold,
- There sits a grasping miser old.
- He has no thought save one of gain,--
- To grind and gather and grasp and drain.
- A peal of bells, a merry shout
- Assail his ear: he gazes out
- Upon a world to him all gray,
- And snarls, "Why, this is Christmas Day!"
- No, man of ice,--for shame, for shame!
- For "Christmas Day" is no mere name.
- No, not for you this ringing cheer,
- This festal season of the year.
- And not for you the chime of bells
- From holy temple rolls and swells.
- In day and deed he has no part--
- Who holds not Christmas in his heart!
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
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