Selected Poems

Table of Contents
PENGUINCLASSICS SELECTED POEMS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
FROM OAK AND IVY 1893
A Banjo Song
A Career
Columbian Ode
Life
Lullaby
Melancholia
My Sort o’ Man
Ode to Ethiopia
Sympathy
The Ol’ Tunes
The Seedling
FROM MAJORS AND MINORS 1895
After the Quarrel
Alice
Ballad
By the Stream
The Change Has Come
Changing Time
The Colored Soldiers
A Corn-Song
Dawn
Dirge
Disappointed
Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes
Frederick Douglass
A Frolic
He Had His Dream
Hymn
Invitation to Love
Ione
The Master-Player
Ode for Memorial Day
One Life
The Poet and His Song
A Prayer
Retort
Ships That Pass in the Night
A Summer’s Night
We Wear the Mask
To Pfrimmer
FROM LYRICS OF LOWLY LIFE 1896
Accountability
An Ante-Bellum Sermon
The Corn-Stalk Fiddle
The Lawyers’ Ways
Religion
After a Visit
The Spellin’-Bee
Keep A-Pluggin’ Away
An Easy-Goin’ Feller
The Wooing
When de Co’n Pone’s Hot
Discovered
The Delinquent
A Confidence
The Party
FROM POEMS OF CABIN AND FIELD 1899
The Deserted Plantation
Little Brown Baby
Chrismus Is A-Comin’
FROM LYRICS OF THE HEARTHSIDE 1899
Love’s Apotheosis
The Paradox
The Right to Die
Behind the Arras
A Hymn - After Reading Lead, Kindly Light.
Dream Song I
Dream Song II
The King Is Dead
Theology
Resignation
Thou Art My Lute
The Phantom Kiss
The Crisis
Alexander Crummell Dead
Sonnet On an Old Book with Uncut Leaves
Misapprehension
For the Man Who Fails
Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Warrior’s Prayer
The Voice of the Banjo
A Choice
The Real Question
Jilted
Chrismus on the Plantation
Foolin’ wid de Seasons
A Death Song
Jealous
Parted
A Letter
At Candle-Lightin’ Time
How Lucy Backslid
Protest
FROM WHEN MALINDY SINGS 1903
When Malindy Sings
The Colored Band
The Memory of Martha
The Tryst
The Boogah Man
Noddin’ by de Fire
My Sweet Brown Gal
In the Morning
The Plantation Child’s Lullaby
Curiosity
Opportunity
Puttin’ the Baby Away
Faith
The Fisher Child’s Lullaby
FROM LYRICS OF LOVE AND LAUGHTER 1903
Joggin’ Erlong
In May
Dreams
The Dove
The Valse
Song
Inspiration
When Dey ‘Listed Colored Soldiers
Lincoln
To a Captious Critic
The Poet
A Spiritual
W’en I Gits Home
The Unsung Heroes
The Pool
Speakin’ at de Cou’t House
Black Samson of Brandywine
Douglass
Booker T. Washington
Philosophy
The Debt
By Rugged Ways
To the South On Its New Slavery
The Haunted Oak
Weltschmertz
Robert Gould Shaw
A Love Song
A Negro Love Song
The Fount of Tears
At the Tavern
FROM LI’L’ GAL 1904
Li’l’ Gal
A Plea
Soliloquy of a Turkey
When Sam’l Sings
FROM LYRICS OF SUNSHINE AND SHADOW 1905
A Boy’s Summer Song
The Sand-Man
Johnny Speaks
Scamp
A Christmas Folksong
The Farm Child’s Lullaby
Hope
The Awakening
A Musical
Twell de Night Is Pas’
Compensation
Anchored
Yesterday and To-morrow
At Sunset Time
At Loafing-Holt
When a Feller’s Itchin’ to Be Spanked
A Love Letter
Trouble in de Kitchen
The Quilting
Forever
Parted
Christmas
FROM HOWDY, HONEY, HOWDY 1905
“Howdy, Honey, Howdy!”
Encouragement
Twilight
FROM JOGGIN’ ERLONG 1906
The Capture
UNCOLLECTED POEMS
Emancipation (1890)
Welcome Address To the Western Association of Writers
Comrade
Love Is a Star
The Making Up
A Toast to Dayton (1917)
Sold A C.H.S. Episode (1890)
After the Struggle (1900)
The Builder (1905) To John H. Patterson, Esq.
Lullaby (II)
Index of Titles
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PENGUIN
CLASSICS SELECTED POEMS
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872—1906) was born in Dayton, Ohio, to two former slaves from Kentucky. The family was poor and the father fled when Dunbar was two. Dunbar’s mother, Matilda, supported her children by working as a washerwoman and by fostering in them a sense of the importance of education and a love of poetry. Dunbar began reciting and writing poetry in his childhood. The only black man in his class at Dayton Central High, he was a star pupil, editor of the school paper, and president of the school’s literary society. While in school, he wrote for the High School Times and edited The Dayton Tatler along with his high school friends Orville and Wilbur Wright. When Dunbar graduated, he had difficulty finding a job appropriate to someone of his considerable education and worked as an elevator operator. Through mostly grassroots efforts and the help of friends, his reputation as a writer grew. His first collection, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1893, and that same year he was invited to recite at the Chicago World’s Fair. There he met Frederick Douglass, who called him “the most promising young colored man in America.” His second book, Majors and Minors, was published in 1895, and thrust him into the national spotlight when William Dean Howells praised it in Harper’s. His first two books were republished professionally and he traveled to Engand to recite in 1897. He married Alice Ruth Moore, a young writer and teacher, who left him after a rocky relationship in 1902. Suffering from tuberculosis and depression, he died in 1906. He ultimately produced twelve books of poetry, four books of stories and plays, and four novels.
HERBERT WOODWARD MARTIN is professor emeritus and poet-in-residence at the University of Dayton. He received his M.Litt. from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College and his doctorate in creative writing from Carnegie Mellon University. The recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, he has published six collections of his own poetry and a collection of Dunbar’s dramatic works. He performs Dunbar’s poetry for audiences around the world and is the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poet Laureate for Dayton, Ohio.

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This edition first published in Penguin Books 2004
Introduction copyright © Herbert Woodward Martin, 2004
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906.
[Poems. Selections]
Selected poems / Paul Laurence Dunbar ; edited with
an introduction by Herbert Woodward Martin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN : 978-1-101-17731-0
1. African Americans—Poetry. I. Martin, Herbert Woodward.
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