To A Violet Found On All Saints' Day

Belated wanderer of the ways of spring,
Lost in the chill of grim November rain,
Would I could read the message that you bring
And find in it the antidote for pain.

Does some sad spirit out beyond the day,
Far looking to the hours forever dead,
Send you a tender offering to lay
Upon the grave of us, the living dead?

Or does some brighter spirit, unforlorn,
Send you, my little sister of the wood,
To say to some one on a cloudful morn,
"Life lives through death, my brother, all is good?"

With meditative hearts the others go
The memory of their dead to dress anew.
But, sister mine, bide here that I may know,
Life grows, through death, as beautiful as you.

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

Little Brown Baby

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

The Valse

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

Resignation

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 Violet

BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER

Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year;
Are Autumn's blasts fit music for thee, fragile one, to hear;
Will thy clear blue eye, upward bent, still keep its chastened glow,
Still tearless lift its slender form above the wintry snow?

Why wilt thou live when none around reflects thy pensive ray?
Thou bloomest here a lonely thing in the clear autumn day.
The tall green trees, that shelter thee, their last gay dress put on;
There will be nought to shelter thee when their sweet leaves are gone.

O Violet, like thee, how blest could I lie down and die,
When summer light is fading, and autumn breezes sigh;
When Winter reigned I'd close my eye, but wake with bursting Spring,
And live with living nature, a pure rejoicing thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To A Dead Friend

It is as if a silver chord
Were suddenly grown mute,
And life's song with its rhythm warred
Against a silver lute.

It is as if a silence fell
Where bides the garnered sheaf,
And voices murmuring, "It is well,"
Are stifled by our grief.

It is as if the gloom of night
Had hid a summer's day,
And willows, sighing at their plight,
Bent low beside the way.

For he was part of all the best
That Nature loves and gives,
And ever more on Memory's breast
He lies and laughs and lives.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

The First Violet.

Spring has come, dear mother!
    I've a violet found,
Growing in its beauty
    From the cold, dark ground.

You are sad, dear mother,
    Tears are in your eye;
You're not glad to see it;
    Mother, tell me why?

I remember.--Last year,
    Where our Willie lies,
Grew the earliest violet,
    Blue as were his eyes.

Then you told me, mother,
    That the flowers would fade,
And their withered blossoms
    On the earth be laid.

But you said, as springtime
    Would their buds restore,
Willie would in heaven
    Be forevermore.

Weep no more, dear mother!
    Violets are in bloom;
And your darling Willie
    Lives beyond the tomb.

H. P. Nichols

The Vesper Chime.

She dwelt within a convent wall
Beside the "blue Moselle,"
And pure and simple was her life
As is the tale I tell.

She never shrank from penance rude,
And was so young and fair,
It was a holy, holy thing,
To see her at her prayer.

Her cheek was very thin and pale;
You would have turned in fear,
If 't were not for the hectic spot
That glowed so soft and clear.

And always, as the evening chime
With measured cadence fell,
Her vespers o'er, she sought alone
A little garden dell.

And when she came to us again,
She moved with lighter air;
We thought the angels ministered
To her while kneeling there.

One eve I followed on her way,
And asked her of her life.
A faint blush mantled cheek and brow,
The sign...

Mary Gardiner Horsford

Dirge

Place this bunch of mignonette
In her cold, dead hand;
When the golden sun is set,
Where the poplars stand,
Bury her from sun and day,
Lay my little love away
From my sight.

She was like a modest flower
Blown in sunny June,
Warm as sun at noon's high hour,
Chaster than the moon.
Ah, her day was brief and bright,
Earth has lost a star of light;
She is dead.

Softly breathe her name to me,--
Ah, I loved her so.
Gentle let your tribute be;
None may better know
Her true worth than I who weep
O'er her as she lies asleep--
Soft asleep.

Lay these lilies on her breast,
They are not more white
Than the soul of her, at rest
'Neath their petals bright.
Chant your aves soft and low,
Solemn be your tread an...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Little Lucy Landman

Oh, the day has set me dreaming
In a strange, half solemn way
Of the feelings I experienced
On another long past day,--
Of the way my heart made music
When the buds began to blow,
And o' little Lucy Landman
Whom I loved long years ago.

It 's in spring, the poet tells us,
That we turn to thoughts of love,
And our hearts go out a-wooing
With the lapwing and the dove.
But whene'er the soul goes seeking
Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
I 've a notion, backed by mem'ry,
That it's love that makes the spring.

I have heard a robin singing
When the boughs were brown and bare,
And the chilling hand of winter
Scattered jewels through the air.
And in spite of dates and seasons,
It was always spring, I know,
When I loved Lucy Landman<...

Paul Laurence Dunbar