Precedent

The poor man went to the rich man's doors,
"I come as Lazarus came," he said.
The rich man turned with humble head,--
"I will send my dogs to lick your sores!"

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

A Plea

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

After Many Days

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

A Banjo Song

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

Possession

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Crisis

A man of low degree was sore oppressed,
Fate held him under iron-handed sway,
And ever, those who saw him thus distressed
Would bid him bend his stubborn will and pray.
But he, strong in himself and obdurate,
Waged, prayerless, on his losing fight with Fate.

Friends gave his proffered hand their coldest clasp,
Or took it not at all; and Poverty,
That bruised his body with relentless grasp,
Grinned, taunting, when he struggled to be free.
But though with helpless hands he beat the air,
His need extreme yet found no voice in prayer.

Then he prevailed; and forthwith snobbish Fate,
Like some whipped cur, came fawning at his feet;
Those who had scorned forgave and called him great--
His friends found out that friendship still was sweet.
But he, once obd...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Douglass

Ah, Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days,
Such days as thou, not even thou didst know,
When thee, the eyes of that harsh long ago
Saw, salient, at the cross of devious ways,
And all the country heard thee with amaze.
Not ended then, the passionate ebb and flow,
The awful tide that battled to and fro;
We ride amid a tempest of dispraise.

Now, when the waves of swift dissension swarm,
And Honor, the strong pilot, lieth stark,
Oh, for thy voice high-sounding o'er the storm,
For thy strong arm to guide the shivering bark,
The blast-defying power of thy form,
To give us comfort through the lonely dark.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

After Many Days

I've always been a faithful man
An' tried to live for duty,
But the stringent mode of life
Has somewhat lost its beauty.

The story of the generous bread
He sent upon the waters,
Which after many days returns
To trusting sons and daughters,

Had oft impressed me, so I want
My soul influenced by it,
And bought a loaf of bread and sought
A stream where I could try it.

I cast my bread upon the waves
And fancied then to await it;
It had not floated far away
When a fish came up and ate it.

And if I want both fish and bread,
And surely both I'm wanting,
About the only way I see
Is for me to go fishing.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Mortality

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

Behind The Arras

As in some dim baronial hall restrained,
A prisoner sits, engirt by secret doors
And waving tapestries that argue forth
Strange passages into the outer air;
So in this dimmer room which we call life,
Thus sits the soul and marks with eye intent
That mystic curtain o'er the portal death;
Still deeming that behind the arras lies
The lambent way that leads to lasting light.
Poor fooled and foolish soul! Know now that death
Is but a blind, false door that nowhere leads,
And gives no hope of exit final, free.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Robert Gould Shaw

Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves,
And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state?
What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
To lead th' unlettered and despised droves
To manhood's home and thunder at the gate?

Far better the slow blaze of Learning's light,
The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,
Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight,
This cold endurance of the final pain,--
Since thou and those who with thee died for right
Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!

Paul Laurence Dunbar