A Golden Day

I found you and I lost you,
All on a gleaming day.
The day was rilled with sunshine,
And the land was full of May.

A golden bird was singing
Its melody divine,
I found you and I loved you,
And all the world was mine.

I found you and I lost you,
All on a golden day,
But when I dream of you, dear,
It is always brimming May.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an influential American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, Dunbar gained national recognition for his dialectic verse and collections of poems such as 'Majors and Minors' (1895) and 'Lyrics of Lowly Life' (1896). His works often addressed themes of racial identity and struggle, making significant contributions to African American literature. Dunbar's writings served as an inspiration for later writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Wooing

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

A Sailor's Song

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

A Spiritual

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

Yesterday And To-Morrow

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

English

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Day

The gray dawn on the mountain top
Is slow to pass away.
Still lays him by in sluggish dreams,
The golden God of day.

And then a light along the hills,
Your laughter silvery gay;
The Sun God wakes, a bluebird trills,
You come and it is day.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

At Sunset Time

Adown the west a golden glow
Sinks burning in the sea,
And all the dreams of long ago
Come flooding back to me.
The past has writ a story strange
Upon my aching heart,
But time has wrought a subtle change,
My wounds have ceased to smart.

No more the quick delight of youth,
No more the sudden pain,
I look no more for trust or truth
Where greed may compass gain.
What, was it I who bared my heart
Through unrelenting years,
And knew the sting of misery's dart,
The tang of sorrow's tears?

'Tis better now, I do not weep,
I do not laugh nor care;
My soul and spirit half asleep
Drift aimless everywhere.
We float upon a sluggish stream,
We ride no rapids mad,
While life is all a tempered dream
And every joy half sad.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Yesterday And To-Morrow

Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.

But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?

Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.

Ah, to-day is like a dirge,--
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.

Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.

Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Over The Hills

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

A Lost Dream

Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.

For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.

I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk within his cell;
But now the dream is lost, and hell

Holds me her captive tight and fast
Who prays and struggles for the past.
No living maid has charmed my eyes,
But now, my soul is wonder-wise.

For I have dreamed of her and seen
Her red-brown tresses' ruddy sheen,
Have known her sweetness, lip to lip,
The joy of her companionship.

When days were bleak and wi...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

In May

Oh to have you in May,
To talk with you under the trees,
Dreaming throughout the day,
Drinking the wine-like breeze,

Oh it were sweet to think
That May should be ours again,
Hoping it not, I shrink,
Out of the sight of men.

May brings the flowers to bloom,
It brings the green leaves to the tree,
And the fatally sweet perfume,
Of what you once were to me.

Paul Laurence Dunbar