The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Paul Laurence Dunbar [best reads of all time .txt] 📗

No thing to be braved, at least;
So bring me the wine;
No low fever in mine,
For a drink is more kind than a priest, my dear,
For a drink is more kind than a priest.


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.


NIGHT, DIM NIGHT

Night, dim night, and it rains, my love, it rains,
(Art thou dreaming of me, I wonder)
The trees are sad, and the wind complains,
Outside the rolling of the thunder,
And the beat against the panes.

Heart, my heart, thou art mournful in the rain,
(Are thy redolent lips a-quiver?)
My soul seeks thine, doth it seek in vain?
My love goes surging like a river,
Shall its tide bear naught save pain?


LYRICS OF LOVE AND SORROW

I

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Heigho, but the world is gloomy;
The light has failed and the lamp down hurled,
Leaves only darkness to me.

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Ah me, but the world is dreary;
The night is down, and my curtain furled
But I cannot sleep, though weary.

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Alas for a hopeless hoping,
When the flame went out in the breeze that swirled,
And a soul went blindly groping.


II

The light was on the golden sands,
A glimmer on the sea;
My soul spoke clearly to thy soul,
Thy spirit answered me.

Since then the light that gilds the sands,
And glimmers on the sea,
But vainly struggles to reflect
The radiant soul of thee.


III

The sea speaks to me of you
All the day long;
Still as I sit by its side
You are its song.

The sea sings to me of you
Loud on the reef;
Always it moans as it sings,
Voicing my grief.


IV

My dear love died last night;
Shall I clothe her in white?
My passionate love is dead,
Shall I robe her in red?
But nay, she was all untrue,
She shall not go drest in blue;
Still my desolate love was brave,
Unrobed let her go to her grave.


V

There are brilliant heights of sorrow
That only the few may know;
And the lesser woes of the world, like waves,
Break noiselessly, far below.
I hold for my own possessing,
A mount that is lone and still--
The great high place of a hopeless grief,
And I call it my "Heart-break Hill."
And once on a winter's midnight
I found its highest crown,
And there in the gloom, my soul and I,
Weeping, we sat us down.

But now when I seek that summit
We are two ghosts that go;
Only two shades of a thing that died,
Once in the long ago.
So I sit me down in the silence,
And say to my soul, "Be still,"
So the world may not know we died that night,
From weeping on "Heart-break Hill."


LYRICS OF SUNSHINE AND SHADOW


A BOY'S SUMMER SONG

'Tis fine to play
In the fragrant hay,
And romp on the golden load;
To ride old Jack
To the barn and back,
Or tramp by a shady road.
To pause and drink,
At a mossy brink;
Ah, that is the best of joy,
And so I say
On a summer's day,
What's so fine as being a boy?
Ha, Ha!

With line and hook
By a babbling brook,
The fisherman's sport we ply;
And list the song
Of the feathered throng
That flit in the branches nigh.
At last we strip
For a quiet dip;
Ah, that is the best of joy.
For this I say
On a summer's day,
What's so fine as being a boy?
Ha, Ha!


THE SAND-MAN

I know a man
With face of tan,
But who is ever kind;
Whom girls and boys
Leaves games and toys
Each eventide to find.

When day grows dim,
They watch for him,
He comes to place his claim;
He wears the crown
Of Dreaming-town;
The sand-man is his name.

When sparkling eyes
Troop sleepywise
And busy lips grow dumb;
When little heads
Nod toward the beds,
We know the sand-man's come.


JOHNNY SPEAKS

The sand-man he's a jolly old fellow,
His face is kind and his voice is mellow,
But he makes your eyelids as heavy as lead,
And then you got to go off to bed;
I don't think I like the sand-man.

But I've been playing this livelong day;
It does make a fellow so tired to play!
Oh, my, I'm a-yawning right here before ma,
I'm the sleepiest fellow that ever you saw.
I think I do like the sand-man.


WINTER-SONG

Oh, who would be sad tho' the sky be a-graying,
And meadow and woodlands are empty and bare;
For softly and merrily now there come playing,
The little white birds thro' the winter-kissed air.

The squirrel's enjoying the rest of the thrifty,
He munches his store in the old hollow tree;
Tho' cold is the blast and the snow-flakes are drifty
He fears the white flock not a whit more than we.

_Chorus:_

Then heigho for the flying snow!
Over the whitened roads we go,
With pulses that tingle,
And sleigh-bells a-jingle
For winter's white birds here's a cheery heigho!


A CHRISTMAS FOLKSONG

De win' is blowin' wahmah,
An hit's blowin' f'om de bay;
Dey's a so't o' mist a-risin'
All erlong de meddah way;
Dey ain't a hint o' frostin'
On de groun' ner in de sky,
An' dey ain't no use in hopin'
Dat de snow'll 'mence to fly.
It's goin' to be a green Christmas,
An' sad de day fu' me.
I wish dis was de las' one
Dat evah I should see.

Dey's dancin' in de cabin,
Dey's spahkin' by de tree;
But dancin' times an' spahkin'
Are all done pas' fur me.
Dey's feastin' in de big house,
Wid all de windahs wide--
Is dat de way fu' people
To meet de Christmas-tide?
It's goin' to be a green Christmas,
No mattah what you say.
Dey's us dat will remembah
An' grieve de comin' day.

Dey's des a bref o' dampness
A-clingin' to my cheek;
De aih's been dahk an' heavy
An' threatenin' fu' a week,
But not wid signs o' wintah,
Dough wintah'd seem so deah--
De wintah's out o' season,
An' Christmas eve is heah.
It's goin' to be a green Christmas,
An' oh, how sad de day!
Go ax de hongry chu'chya'd,
An' see what hit will say.

Dey's Allen on de hillside,
An' Marfy in de plain;
Fu' Christmas was like springtime,
An' come wid sun an' rain.
Dey's Ca'line, John, an' Susie,
Wid only dis one lef':
An' now de curse is comin'
Wid murder in hits bref.
It's goin' to be a green Christmas--
Des hyeah my words an' see:
Befo' de summah beckons
Dey's many 'll weep wid me.


THE FOREST GREETING

Good hunting!--aye, good hunting,