To The Road

Cool is the wind, for the summer is waning,
Who 's for the road?
Sun-flecked and soft, where the dead leaves are raining,
Who 's for the road?
Knapsack and alpenstock press hand and shoulder,
Prick of the brier and roll of the boulder;
This be your lot till the season grow older;
Who 's for the road?

Up and away in the hush of the morning,
Who 's for the road?
Vagabond he, all conventions a-scorning,
Who 's for the road?
Music of warblers so merrily singing,
Draughts from the rill from the roadside up-springing,
Nectar of grapes from the vines lowly swinging,
These on the road.

Now every house is a hut or a hovel,
Come to the road:
Mankind and moles in the dark love to grovel,
But to the road.
Throw off the loads that are bending you double;
Love is for life, only labor is trouble;
Truce to the town, whose best gift is a bubble:
Come to the road!

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 Crisis

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

Possum Trot

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

Chrismus Is A-Comin'

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

Limitations

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Simple Poetry

English

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A Roadway

Let those who will stride on their barren roads
And prick themselves to haste with self-made goads,
Unheeding, as they struggle day by day,
If flowers be sweet or skies be blue or gray:
For me, the lone, cool way by purling brooks,
The solemn quiet of the woodland nooks,
A song-bird somewhere trilling sadly gay,
A pause to pick a flower beside the way.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

At Loafing-Holt

Since I left the city's heat
For this sylvan, cool retreat,
High upon the hill-side here
Where the air is clean and clear,
I have lost the urban ways.
Mine are calm and tranquil days,
Sloping lawns of green are mine,
Clustered treasures of the vine;
Long forgotten plants I know,
Where the best wild berries grow,
Where the greens and grasses sprout,
When the elders blossom out.
Now I am grown weather-wise
With the lore of winds and skies.
Mine the song whose soft refrain
Is the sigh of summer rain.
Seek you where the woods are cool,
Would you know the shady pool
Where, throughout the lazy day,
Speckled beauties drowse or play?
Would you find in rest or peace
Sorrow's permanent release?--
Leave the city, grim and gray,
Come wit...

Paul Laurence Dunbar

On The Road

Let us bid the world good-by,
Now while sun and cloud's above us,
While we've nothing to deny,
Nothing but our selves to love us:
Let us fancy, I and you,
All the dreams we dreamed came true.

We have gone but half the road,
Rugged road of root and bowlder;
Made the best of Life's dark load,
Cares, that helped us to grow older:
We, my dear, have done our best
Let us stop awhile and rest.

Let us, by this halfway stile,
Put away the world's desire,
And sit down, a little while,
With our hearts, and light a fire:
Sing the songs that once we sung
In the days when we were young.

Haply they will bring again,
From the Lands of Song and Story,
To our sides the elfin train
Of the dreams we dreamed of glory,
That are one no...

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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

Song Of The Road

I am a Road; a good road, fair and smooth and broad;
    And I link with my beautiful tether
    Town and Country together,
Like a ribbon rolled on the earth, from the reel of God.
    Oh, great the life of a Road!

I am a Road; a long road, leading on and on;
    And I cry to the world to follow,
    Past meadow and hill and hollow,
Through desolate night, to the open gates of dawn.
    Oh, bold the life of a Road!

I am a Road; a kind road, shaped by strong hands.
    I make strange cities neighbours;
    The poor grow rich with my labours,
And beauty and comfort follow me through the lands.
    Oh, glad the life of a Road!

I am a Road; a wise road, knowing all men's ways;
    And I know how each heart reaches
    For the things dear Nat...

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In Summer

Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies' soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.

And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air's soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands.

I envy the farmer's boy
Who sings as he follows the plow;
While the shining green of the young blades lean
To the breezes that cool his brow.

He sings to the dewy morn,
No thought of another's ear;
But the song he sings is a chant for kings
And the whole wide world to hear.

He sings of the joys of life,
Of the pleasures of work and rest,
From an o'erfull heart, without aim or art;
'T is a song of the merriest.

O...

Paul Laurence Dunbar