PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
Reading edition
Paul Laurence Dunbar. Born, Dayton, Ohio, June 27, 1872. Educated in public schools, and graduated from Dayton High School, where he achieved some distinction. Editor of school paper, and noted as a versifier, from his grammar-school days. Printed his first book, Oak and Ivy, in 1893.
Two friends of his early manhood helped most to shape his career, and to encourage him in his days of struggle—Dr. H. A. Tobey, the celebrated alienist of Toledo, Ohio, and Frederick Douglass. The former helped him to bring his second book, Majors and Minors, before the public; the latter, with whom he was associated in the Negro Building at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, was the hero of the poet’s dreams, the one to whom he dedicated two of his most serious poems.
Although Dunbar is remembered largely for his dialect verse, it was never his intention to concentrate on dialect. His poems in pure English constitute the greater bulk of his verse, and that to which he was most passionately devoted. The tragedy of his life was that the world “turned to praise the jingle in a broken tongue.” His friendship for Booker Washington and a visit to Tuskegee inspired him to write the Tuskegee School Song, which is sung to the tune of “Fair Harvard.”
The famous criticism of Majors and Minors by William Dean Howells in Harper’s Weekly, June 27, 1897 established Dunbar’s prestige as an important figure in American literature. From that time his success was assured.
He was married to Alice Ruth Moore of New Orleans, a teacher in Brooklyn, N. Y., in March, 1898.
He was as indefatigable a writer of prose as of poetry; short stories, novels, criticism, essays and some short plays poured from his pen. His published works, exclusive of the two volumes of verse mentioned above, are: Lyrics of Lowly Life, Lyrics of the Hearthside, Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow; several smaller volumes, illustrated editions of poems in the preceding volumes; short stories, Folks from Dixie, The Strength of Gideon; novels, The Uncalled, The Fanatics, The Love of Landry, The Sport of the Gods.
He died in Dayton, Ohio, February 9, 1906.
Alice Dunbar Nelson.
ERE SLEEP COMES DOWN TO SOOTHE THE WEARY EYES[1]
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought The magic gold which from the seeker flies; Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought, And make the waking world a world of lies,— Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn, That say life’s full of aches and tears and sighs,— Oh, how with more than dreams the soul is torn, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, How all the griefs and heartaches we have known Come up like pois’nous vapors that arise From some base witch’s caldron, when the crone, To work some potent spell, her magic plies. The past which held its share of bitter pain, Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise, Comes up, is lived and suffered o’er again, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, What phantoms fill the dimly lighted room; What ghostly shades in awe-creating guise Are bodied forth within the teeming gloom. What echoes faint of sad and soul-sick cries, And pangs of vague inexplicable pain That pay the spirit’s ceaseless enterprise, Come thronging through the chambers of the brain, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies Tends her far course to lands of mystery? To lands unspeakable—beyond surmise, Where shapes unknowable to being spring, Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies Much wearied with the spirit’s journeying, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, How questioneth the soul that other soul,— The inner sense which neither cheats nor lies, But self exposes unto self, a scroll Full writ with all life’s acts unwise or wise, In characters indelible and known; So, trembling with the shock of sad surprise, The soul doth view its awful self alone, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. When sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes, The last dear sleep whose soft embrace is balm, And whom sad sorrow teaches us to prize For kissing all our passions into calm, Ah, then, no more we heed the sad world’s cries, Or seek to probe th’ eternal mystery, Or fret our souls at long-withheld replies, At glooms through which our visions cannot see, When sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes.
DEATH SONG[2]
Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass, Whah de branch’ll go a-singin’ as it pass. An’ w’en I’s a-layin’ low, I kin hyeah it as it go Singin’, “Sleep, my honey, tek yo’ res’ at las’.” Lay me nigh to whah hit meks a little pool, An’ de watah stan’s so quiet lak an’ cool, Whah de little birds in spring, Ust to come an’ drink an’ sing, An’ de chillen waded on dey way to school. Let me settle w’en my shouldahs draps dey load Nigh enough to hyeah de noises in de road; Fu’ I t’ink de las’ long res’ Gwine to soothe my sperrit bes’ If I’s layin’ ’mong de t’ings I’s allus knowed.
LIFE[3]
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double: And that is life! A crust and a corner that love makes precious, With the smile to warm and the tears to refresh us: And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter: And that is life!
AFTER THE QUARREL[4]
So we, who’ve supped the self-same cup, To-night must lay our friendship by; Your wrath has burned your judgment up, Hot breath has blown the ashes high. You say that you are wronged—ah, well, I count that friendship poor, at best A bauble, a mere bagatelle, That cannot stand so slight a test. I fain would still have been your friend, And talked and laughed and loved with you; But since it must, why, let it end; The false but dies, ’tis not the true. So we are favored, you and I, Who only want the living truth. It was not good to nurse the lie; ’Tis well it died in harmless youth. I go from you to-night to sleep. Why, what’s the odds? why should I grieve? I have no fund of tears to weep For happenings that undeceive. The days shall come, the days shall go Just as they came and went before. The sun shall shine, the streams shall flow Though you and I are friends no more. And in the volume of my years, Where all my thoughts and acts shall be, The page whereon your name appears Shall be forever sealed to me. Not that I hate you over-much, ’Tis less of hate than love defied; Howe’er, our hands no more shall touch, We’ll go our ways, the world is wide.
SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT[5]
Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; I look far out into the pregnant night, Where I can hear a solemn booming gun And catch the gleaming of a random light, That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing. My tearful eyes my soul’s deep hurt are glassing; For I would hail and check that ship of ships. I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud, My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips, And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing. O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing, O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark! Is there no hope for me? Is there no way That I may sight and check that speeding bark Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?
WE WEAR THE MASK[6]
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
SYMPATHY[7]
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!
THE DEBT[8]
This is the debt I pay Just for one riotous day, Years of regret and grief, Sorrow without relief. Pay it I will to the end— Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release— Gives me the clasp of peace. Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought, Poor was the loan at best— God! but the interest!