Dunbar: the ability to manage dialect

You ask my opinion about Negro dialect in literature. Well, I frankly believe in everyone following his bent. If it be so that one has a special aptitude for dialect work, why it is only right that dialect should be made a specialty. But if one should be like me — absolutely devoid of the ability to manage dialect — I don't see the necessity of ramming and forcing oneself into that plane because one is a Negro or a Southerner.

So wrote Alice Ruth Moore to her future husband Paul Laurence Dunbar on May 7, 1895. Moore was herself a poet, and the letter clearly implies that Dunbar felt uncomfortable taking advantage of his status as an up-and-coming black poet by writing in a stereotypical black dialect. He was correct to be concerned. Though he also wrote in traditional poetic language, it was his dialect poetry that soon launched his popularity. He was not a Southerner, having been born in Dayton, Ohio; Moore, on the other hand, was from New Orleans. One of Dunbar's boosters was William Dean Howells, who particularly enjoyed the dialect work. Two years after his letter to Moore, Dunbar admitted that Howells had done him "irrevocable harm"; the public came to expect a black dialect from the pen of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and was less likely to accept his more traditional work.

Dunbar was then 22 years old and had published his book Oak and Ivy two years earlier. That book included only a few dialect poems. His next book, Majors and Minors (1895) included a separate section for "Humor and Dialect." The same year, Moore published her first book, Violets and Other Tales. Though some of the prose stories in that collection had characters who spoke with Southern dialogue, her poetry used traditional language. One of Dunbar's more famous dialect poems is "A Negro Love Song":

Seen my lady home las' night,
   Jump back honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
   Jump back honey, jump back.
Heahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'um huh eye,
An' a smile go flitin' by—
   Jump back honey, jump back.

Heahd de win' blow thoo de pines,
   Jump back honey, jump back.
Mockin' bird was singin, fine,
   Jump back honey, jump back.
An' my hea't was beatin' so,
When I reached my lady's do',
Dat I couldn't ba' to go—
   Jump back, honey, jump back.

Put my ahm aroun' huh wais',
   Jump back, honey, jump back.
Raised huh lips an took a tase',
   Jump back, honey, jump back.
Love me honey, love me true?
Love me well ez I love you?
An' she ansawhd: "'Cose I do"—
   Jump back, honey, jump back.

Dunbar, the Wright Brothers, and the Tattler

Paul Laurence Dunbar issued the first edition of the Dayton Tattler in December 1890. The venture was put forth with the help of an associate named Preston Finley and printed by Dunbar's friends and classmates the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright (fellow residents of Dayton, Ohio, the Wrights are better known for their exploits in aviation). In its second issue, dated December 20, he included three short stories left anonymous but since attributed to Dunbar himself: "His Failure in Arithmetic," "His Little Lark," and "From Impulse."

Though he was known primarily for his poetry, Dunbar was actually prolific in prose as well, publishing four novels (one was somewhat autobiographical), a play, and four collections of tales. None of the three stories from the Tattler's December 20, 1890 issue were included in those compilations and have only been identified as possibly from the pen of Dunbar more recently (using the original manuscript). Each is quite short, only a few paragraphs.

In "His Failure of Arithmetic," a "red 'hided' man" visits the professor of the academy after hearing he has beaten his son "with an oak split" after he got an incorrect answer. The father, Mr. Jowerson, threatens to maul him but the professor explains the circumstances:

"My dear sir," said the professor, "I did whip your son with a white oak split, but he deserved it. During a recitation in arithmetic, I asked him this question: 'If you were to go with a jug to fill it, and there was a still-house a half mile away and a spring a quarter of a mile away, what would you bring back?'"

The boy said, "water." After hearing the story, the father says he agrees with his son's punishment, though he would have recommended, "he deserves hickery instead of white oak."

In "His Little Lark," a man named Mr. Sylvester is out with a friend, presumably after a long night of drinking. He brags that his wife no longer waits up for him but when he stumbles up the stairs, he finds her sitting in a rocking chair at the end of their bed. She refuses to answer him, however, even after he "commands" her with the authority of a husband. He crawls into bed nonetheless but is shocked to find someone is already there! In fact, it is his wife, and the silent person in the rocking chair was merely a stack of her clothes.

And Sylvester murmured: "Saved again, b'gosh!" as he tucked himself in his little bed, while his wife continued to sleep the sleep of the just.

* Information in this post, including the text of the tales mentioned, comes from The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Ohio University Press, 2005), edited by Gene Andrew Jarrett and Thomas Lewis Morgan.

Dunbar: Howells has done me irrevocable harm

Paul Laurence Dunbar had reason both to be thankful to editor/critic William Dean Howells and to be upset with him. Howells had used his influence to launch Dunbar's national fame. In doing so, however, he also drew attention specifically to Dunbar's dialect poems and encouraged him to do more of them (and less of his more traditional works). In doing so, Howells limited the public's expectation of Dunbar's work as stereotypically black. Worse, the problem was compounded by other critics who followed the word of the "Dean of American Letters." The poet was acutely aware of the problem. As he wrote in a letter dated March 15, 1897:

One critic says a thing and the rest hasten to say the same thing, in many instances using the identical words. I see now very clearly that Mr. Howells has done me irrevocable harm in the dictum he laid down regarding my dialect verse.

Similar sentiments were expressed overseas as well. Dunbar wanted to stay popular and successful. As such, he had to cater much of his work to the expectations Howells created for his potential readers. Further, critics implied he only deserved recognition because he was black; similar writings from a white person were less impressive. Dunbar, confined to this sphere, had difficulty fighting against it. Still, enough of his works challenge and complicate his contemporary reputation. Such tension is clear in one of his most powerful works "We Wear the Mask":

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
     It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

Dunbar: give up reading entirely

At the turn of the century, Paul Laurence Dunbar was at the height of his fame. His poetry and prose had attracted first a regional then a national audience. He worked hard to be prolific and supplemented his income (and fame) by givng public readings. Throughout it all, he was dying of tuberculosis.

For the frequent coughing fits, sometimes bloody ones, doctors told Dunbar to try alcohol. He chose whisky as his drink of choice but his attempts to solve his problematic health resulted in another problem: alcoholism. The pain from his disease seemed a good enough reason to rely on the bottle, but his personal depression and the challenges in his personal life were equally good excuses. And so, Dunbar drank more heavily.

On October 19, 1900, his personal troubles spilled over into his professional poetic life. That day, in Evanston, Illinois, Dunbar took to the podium for a reading in a Methodist church. Dunbar showed up late and obviously drunk. He had been known for his commanding voice; instead, he mumbled and coughed frequently. One by one, those in attendance left in disgust (Evanston was a center for the temperance movement).

The press picked up the story, causing further embarassment particularly for his wife Alice Dunbar (with whom he would become estranged in two years). Dunbar himself wrote a letter to the editor apologizing for his performance, noting his ill health and the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes. His friend James Weldon Johnson invited him to his home in Florida to rest. Dunbar recognized that things had changed for him, writing soon after to the friend who had helped arrange the Evanston appearance that he had disgraced himself and ashamed his friend. He concluded, "I have cancelled all my engagements and given up reading entirely." His poem "The Debt" (1895):

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end —
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release —
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best —
God! but the interest!

Dunbar graduates: The wind is fair

The graduation ceremony for Central High School in Dayton, Ohio was held in the Dayton Opera House on June 16, 1891. Included in the day's exercises was the singing of the class song, which happened to be written by the sole black student among the 43 graduates. His name was Paul Laurence Dunbar. Among the words were:

The wind is fair, the sails are spread,
Let hearts be firm, "God Speed" is said;
Before us lies the untried way,
And we're impatient at the stay.

Dunbar's lyrics, written to a tune composed by a teacher was well received. Fellow graduates boasted that it was the school's greatest class song. Dunbar himself had reason to be proud: his high school career included ranking roles in the school debate team and editorship of the student newspaper. By then, he was also a published poet. Yet, he "the untried way" before the new graduate would prove difficult. His father had died only a few years earlier, and his struggle to earn a living for himself and his mother led him to take several odd jobs.

Before the end of the century, however, he would be recognized as one of the most celebrated African American authors. His life was never easy, nonetheless, and he died fifteen years after his high school graduation.

*Recommended: The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, edited with an introduction by Joanne M. Braxton.

Dunbar: an immortality in this world

When Paul Laurence Dunbar died in Dayton, Ohio in 1906, several gathered for a memorial service. One who could not attend was a friend of Dunbar's who was also the mayor of Toledo, Brand Whitlock. His letter to the memorial chairperson is dated February 11, 1906 (the day before the service):

I wish I could be with you all to-morrow to pay my tribute to poor Paul. But I cannot, and feeling as I do his loss, I cannot now attempt any estimate of his wonderful personality that would be at all worthy. If friendship knew obligation, I would acknowledge my debt to you for the boon of knowing Paul Dunbar. It is one of the countless good deeds to your credit that you were among the first to recognize the poet in him and help him to a larger and freer life.
For Paul was a poet: and I find that when I have said that I have said the greatest and most splendid thing that can be said about a man.

Whitlock's letter was addressed to Dr. Henry Archibald Tobey, who had assisted Dunbar financially and help promote his writing. In fact, it was Tobey that help publish Dunbar's second book, Majors and Minors, in 1895. Tobey read Mayor Whitlock's letter at the memorial gathering. The letter included praise not only because of Dunbar's ability to impress his own people (i.e. African Americans) but all people, regardless of race. "The true poet is universal," Whitlock wrote, and Dunbar was a true poet whose best quality was universality.

Whitlock also noted that he knew what really killed Dunbar, not the disease of tuberculosis, but melancholy. In saying so, he alluded to the poet's drinking problem and his marital strife. Whitlock singled out some of his favorites not only to read, but to hear Dunbar present aloud, including "We Wear the Mask" and "Ships that Pass in the Night." Whitlock's letter concluded:

We shall hear that deep, melodious voice no more: his humor, his drollery, his exquisite mimicry—these are gone. And to-morrow you will lay his tired body away, fittingly enough, on [Abraham] Lincoln's birthday. But his songs will live and give his beautiful personality an immortality in this world.

Silas Jackson: the hollowness of his life

Unbeknownst to him, it was just one day more than six years before his death that Paul Laurence Dunbar published "Silas Jackson" in the New York Evening Post, February 10, 1900. It was the beginning of the end for Dunbar. That year he finally would be diagnosed with tuberculosis and spiral more fully into his alcoholism. Two years later, he and his wife would separate. Two years after that, he would return to the city of his birth (Dayton, Ohio) to live out his remaining two years with his mother before his death at age 33.

"Silas Jackson" was one of Dunbar's many short stories, though he is primarily remembered as a poet. In the story, the title character is born on a Virginia farm but, as told in the opening lines, is destined for fame. Silas, a black boy, obtains work in a hotel with the help of a benefactor. He instantly learns to hate his humble ways as a farmhand, saw that his family was dirty, and looked forward to moving to the big city (despite being warned of its "wickedness"). But, when his benefactor comes to see him, he finds something about the boy has changed, and not for the better.

Silas is soon recognized for his singing skills and an opera producer recruits him. In New York, he becomes a star, develops an ego, and forgets to send money home to his struggling family. When Silas suddenly becomes sick, however, he is no longer able to sing — and is instantly replaced. Only then does he realize how far he has fallen from his humble family life:

Silas gazed blankly at the wall. The hollowness of his life all came suddenly before him. All his false ideals crumbled, and he lay there with nothing to hope for. Then came back the yearnings for home, for the cabin and the fields, and there was no disgust in his memory of them.

When his strength partly returned, he sold some of the few things that remained to him from his prosperous days, and with the money purchased a ticket for home; then spent, broken, hopeless, all contentment and simplicity gone, he turned his face toward his native fields.

To give full time to his literary work

The records at the Library of Congress are simple in recording the loss of one of its most talented employees: "Paul Laurence Dunbar, appointed from New York to position assistant in Reading Room, Library of Congress... Resigned December 31, 1898, to give full time to his literary work." Dunbar, who earned a $720 salary, left the job after one year and two months.

His main motivation for the job was basic: he needed money. Though his poetry had been popular, he was financially strapped and, if he ever wanted to marry the beautiful Alice Ruth Moore, he had to secure an income. Dunbar also hoped that access to the great Library of Congress would enrich his mind and, in turn, his literary output. His time there, however, was ultimately not positive.

After putting in a full day's work, Dunbar would attempt to work on his writing from home (by this time, more prose than poetry) but found himself exhausted. Two months into the job, he wrote to a friend, "I am working very hard these days, so if it is only for the idle that the devil runs his employment bureau, I have no need of his services." Adding to his busy schedule, Dunbar was also traveling to give public recitations. His throat was beginning to suffer; he attributed the problem to the dusty books.

Dunbar also missed his home town of Dayton, Ohio and that is where he focused on his "full time" devotion to his "literary work." Unfortunately, however, that period would be short-lived. By 1900, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Six years later, he was dead at the age of 33.

While working at the Library of Congress, Dunbar was also writing The Uncalled, a semi-autobiographical novel. Here's one scene:

"I've been hard at work all my life."

"Eh, that so? You don't look like you'd done much hard work. What do you do?"

"I — I — ah — write," was the confused answer.

Perkins, fortunately, did not notice the confusion. "Oh, ho!" he said: "do you go in for newspaper work?"

"No, not for newspapers."

"Oh, you 're an author, a regular out-and-outer. Well, don't you know, I thought you were somehow different from most fellows I've met. I never could see how you authors could stay away in small towns, where you hardly ever see any one, and write about people as you do; but I suppose you get your people from books."

"No, not entirely," replied Brent, letting the mistake go. "There are plenty of interesting characters in a small town. Its life is just what the life of a larger city is, only the scale is smaller."

Dunbar: it means a regular income

"I have landed the position at Washington," wrote Paul Laurence Dunbar to a friend on October 11, 1897. "It is a small one, but it means a regular income, the which I have always so much wanted." Dunbar had been appointed to a job in the Reading Room at the Library of Congress. The income that so excited him was $720 per year.

The Dayton, Ohio-born Dunbar had secured the job through the help and influence of a friend. Throughout his life, he had worked a series of odd jobs (including elevator operator), eking out a living while also writing both poetry and prose.

Yet, as early as 23 years old, he complained about "menial labor" and harbored an "all-absorbing desire" to be a writer. His first widely-circulated poem was published when he was 16. True to his word, he gave up on his job in the Reading Room after only a year and three months. The official record at the Library of Congress gives his reasoning "to give full time to his literary work." Though Dunbar lived a short life, he did live long enough to see his reputation as a writer blossom. Dunbar's poem "One Life":

Oh, I am hurt to death, my Love;
   The shafts of Fate have pierced my striving heart,
And I am sick and weary of
   The endless pain and smart.
My soul is weary of the strife,
And chafes at life, and chafes at life.

Time mocks me with fair promises;
   A blooming future grows a barren past,
Like rain my fair full-blossomed trees
   Unburdened in the blast.
The harvest fails on grain and tree,
Nor comes to me, nor comes to me.

The stream that bears my hopes abreast
   Turns ever from my way its pregnant tide.
My laden boat, torn from its rest,
   Drifts to the other side.
So all my hopes are set astray,
And drift away, and drift away.

The lark sings to me at the morn,
   And near me wings her skyward-soaring flight;
But pleasure dies as soon as born,
   The owl takes up the night,
And night seems long and doubly dark;
I miss the lark, I miss the lark.

Let others labor as they may,
   I'll sing and sigh alone, and write my line.
Their fate is theirs, or grave or gay,
   And mine shall still be mine.
I know the world holds joy and glee,
But not for me,—'tis not for me.

Dunbar: to be a worthy singer

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an intelligent young man in high school, where he was a member of the literary society, the debate team, and the school newspaper. As an adult, he took whatever job he could get to earn money, including a stint as an elevator operator. At age 23, however, he described his greater ambitions in a letter dated July 13, 1895:

Yes, I am tied down and have been by menial labor, and any escape from it so far has only been a brief respite that made a return to the drudgery doubly hard. But I am glad to say that for the past two or three years I have been able to keep my mother from the hard toil by which she raised and educated me. But it has been and is a struggle.

...I did once want to be a lawyer, but that ambition has long since died out before the all-absorbing desire to be a worthy singer of the songs of God and nature. To be able to interpret my own people through song and story, and to prove to the many that after all we are more human than African.

Dunbar had published his first poem when he was 16. By the time he wrote this letter, he had also published first book, Oak and Ivy (1893), though it did not earn him much money. He was giving sporadic readings in the hopes of earning extra cash and boosting his literary reputation. He hoped to attend college some day (he never did) and anticipated a trip around the country: "I have hoped year after year to be able to go to Washington, New York, Boston and Philadelphia where I might see our northern negro at his best, before seeing his brother in the South," he noted in his letter.

About a year later, a review by William Dean Howells would launch Dunbar into the national spotlight. His career, however, was cut short by his early death at the age of 33.

Dunbar: a martyr's lifeless clay

The Dayton Herald in Ohio published "Our Martyred Soldiers" on June 8, 1888, a poem written by a 16-year old named Paul Laurence Dunbar. It was Dunbar's first widely-circulated poem. His previous works were confined to a school newspaper — the beginning of a short but celebrated career. "Our Martyred Soldiers" was about Union soldiers during the Civil War but really was an homage to "colored" soldiers during that conflict — including the poet's father. Joshua Dunbar had escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. After making his way to Canada, he returned specifically to fight with the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, later the 5th Cavalry.

In homes all green, but cold in death,
Robbed of the blessed boon of breath—
Resting in peace from field and fray,
Our martyred soldiers sleeping lay.

Beneath the dew, the rain, the snow,
They heed no more the bloody foe,
Their sleep is calm, to them alone
'Tis giv'n to lie without a moan.

The sun may shine in all his might—
They know no day, they know no night,
But wait a still more lasting ray,
The coming of eternal day.

No longer marches break their rest,
Or passioned hate thrills through the breast,
They lie all clothed in calm repose,
All safe from shots of lurking foes.

The grave's a sacred place where none
Of earth may touch the sleeping one;
Where silence reigns, enthroned, sedate,
An angel guarding heaven's gate.

The wind may blow, the hail may fall,
But at the tomb is silence all;
Man finds no nobler place to pray,
Then o'er a martyr's lifeless clay.

Sleep on, ye soldiers, men of God,
A nation's tears bedew the sod;
'Tis but a short, short time till ye
Shall through the shining portals flee.

And when this memory lost shall be,
We turn, oh Father, God, to thee!
Oh find in heaven some nobler thing
Then martyrs of which men can sing.

*A great resource for this entry was Hope & Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (2009), edited by Martin H. Blatt, Thomas J. Brown, and Donald Yacovone.

Dunbar: I remember the occasion well

On March 1, 1901, Paul Laurence Dunbar received a letter inviting him to take part in the Inaugural Parade for William McKinley in honor of his second term as President of the United States. If accepted, Dunbar would be given the honorary rank of colonel. He almost refused. As he wrote years later:

When the document was brought to me, I refused positively to appear in the parade, as I did not consider myself a sufficiently good horseman. So I sent the gentleman away with that answer, but as soon as he was out of the house, my wife and mother made siege upon me, and compelled me to run after him. I remember the occasion well, how I ran down my front steps in housejacket and slippers and calling to my late visitor, told him that I had changed my mind, perforce.

The parade was held three days later, and Dunbar rode a white horse (despite his lack of confidence in his riding). In his speech, McKinley acknowledged the need for blacks and whites to work together:

Strong hearts and helpful hands are needed, and, fortunately, we have them in every part of our beloved country. We are reunited. Sectionalism has disappeared. Division on public questions can no longer be traced by the war maps of 1861. These old differences less and less disturb the judgment... If there are those among us who would make our way more difficult, we must not be disheartened, but the more earnestly dedicate ourselves to the task upon which we have rightly entered. The path of progress is seldom smooth. New things are often found hard to do. Our fathers found them so. We find them so. They are inconvenient. They cost us something. But are we not made better for the effort and sacrifice, and are not those we serve lifted up and blessed?

Only a few months later, McKinley was assassinated. When the President's successor, Theodore Roosevelt, ran for president, Dunbar wrote a campaign poem on his behalf. Roosevelt thanked him by presenting Dunbar with an honorary sword and, exactly four years later to the day, re-appointed him as an honorary colonel. The poet died the next year. His poem for Roosevelt:

There's a mighty sound a comin",
From the East and there's a hummin'
   And a bumtnin' from the bosom of the West,
While the North has given tongue,
And the South will be among
   Those who holler that our Roosevelt is best.

We have heard of him in battle
And amid the roar and rattle
   When the foemen fled like cattle to their stalls:
We have seen him staunch and grim
When the only, battle hymn
   Was the shrieking of the Spanish Mauser balls.

Product of a worthy sireing,
Fearless, honest, brave, untiring —
   In the forefront of the firing, there he stands:
And we're not afraid to show
That we all revere him so,
   To dissentients of our own and other lands.

Now, the fight is on in earnest,
And we care not if the sternest
   Of encounters try our valor or the quality of him,
For they're few who stoop to fear
As the glorious day draws near,
   For you'll find him hell to handle when he gets in fightin' trim.

Dunbar: I love the dear old ballads best

Late in 1905, a close friend of Paul Laurence Dunbar died suddenly. The Ohio-born poet felt that his own days were numbered and, though his mother warned him not to, he attended the funeral. It was a harsh, cold winter, and Dunbar stood bareheaded as he watched his friend's coffin lowered into the grave.

"Like the fields, I am lying fallow," he wrote that Christmas, "and it will take a long time to make anything worth coming out in blossom." Separated from his wife Alice Ruth Moore and suffering from tuberculosis, Dunbar was depressed and tired. His mother turned her living room into a bedroom for him and let him sleep close to the fireplace. It was in that room and in his mother's arms that Dunbar died in 1906.

His funeral was held February 12, 1906 at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dayton — the same church he attended as a boy. He was buried at Woodland Cemetery. A friend, Brand Whitlock (then mayor of Toledo, Ohio), wrote to Dunbar's mother: "You have lost a son, I have lost a friend, but America has lost more than all else and that is a poet."

His poem "Songs":

I love the dear old ballads best,
          That tell of love and death,
Whose every line sings love's unrest
          Or mourns the parting breath.
I love those songs the heart can feel,
          That make our pulses throb;
When lovers plead or contrites kneel
          With choking sigh and sob.

God sings through songs that touch the heart,
          And none are prized save these.
Though men may ply their gilded art
          For fortune, fame, or fees,
The muse that sets the songster's soul
          Ablaze with lyric fire,
Holds nature up, an open scroll,
          And build's art's funeral pyre.

Dunbar: A song is but a little thing

Paul Laurence Dunbar earned recognition as America's first professional African-American literary man. His first volume of poetry, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1893 (dedicated to his mother, "who has ever been my guide, teacher and inspiration"); he also published novels, songs, essays, and more. Perhaps most notably, he was recognized and appreciated by all races.

Dunbar was born at 311 Howard Street in Dayton, Ohio, on June 27, 1872, the son of former slaves from Kentucky (his father had fought in the Civil War for Massachusetts). In high school, the teenage Dunbar was the only African-American student in his class for four years. He was not intimidated and became an active member of the student body: he was a member of the debating society, editor of the school paper, and president of the literary society. He graduated in 1891.

In 1895, Dunbar published Lyrics of Lowly Life, a collection which juxtaposed traditional English-inspired poetry with a representative black voice, using a dialect and interpreting themes unique to the African-American experience. The result was a unique book which some scholars suggest introduced an important question in black writing about "the absence and the presence of the black voice in the text," according to Prof. Henry Louis Gates. Compare the first stanza in a couple poems from that collection:

"The Poet and His Song"

A song is but a little thing,
And yet what joy it is to sing!
In hours of toil it gives me zest,
And when at eve I long for rest;
When cows come home along the bars,
And in the fold I hear the bell,
As Night, the shepherd, herds his stars,
I sing my song, and all is well.

"An Ante-Bellum Sermon"

We is gathahed hyeah, my brothahs,
  In dis howlin' wildaness,
Fu' to speak some words of comfo't
  To each othah in distress.
An' we chooses fu' ouah subjic'
  Dis — we'll 'splain it by an' by;
"An' de Lawd said, 'Moses, Moses,'
  An' de man said, 'Hyeah am I.'"

Death of Paul Laurence Dunbar

At the age of 33, Paul Laurence Dunbar died on February 9, 1906. He was born the son of a former slave and an escaped slave in Kentucky. His father had served for the Union Army in the Civil War as a member of the Massachusetts 55th Infantry Regiment. His mother loved poetry and music and encouraged her children to read.

Dunbar's earliest poem was written when he was six years old. The only African-American in his high school, he rose to leadership roles in the debate team, the school newspaper, and the literary society. He took whatever employment he could, including a job as an elevator operator, but always pursued writing. His first book of poems, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1892. Though the book made little impact nationally, Frederick Douglass called Dunbar "the most promising young colored man in America."

After moving to Toledo, Ohio, Dunbar finally got some acclaim from his second book, Majors and Minors, published in 1895. William Dean Howells wrote the introduction to his third collection. Dunbar was invited to England to recite his poetry, he got married, he found a job at the Library of Congress. There, he showed his first signs of tuberculosis. He and his wife soon split, and he went to visit a half-brother in Chicago. It was there that he died at the age of 33. Still, he outlived another promising young writer of the 19th century by two years who shares his death anniversary, several decades earlier. More on him later today.

Death Song

  Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass,
  Whah de branch'll go a-singin' as it pass.
  An' w'en I's a-layin' low,
  I kin hyeah it as it go
Singin', "Sleep, my honey, tek yo' res' at last'."

  Lay me nigh to whah hit meks a little pool,
  An' de watah stan's so quiet lak an' cool,
  Whah de little birds in spring,
  Ust to come an' drink an' sing,
An' de chillen waded on dey way to school.

  Let me settle w'en my shouldahs draps dey load
  Nigh enough to hyeah de noises in de road;
  Fu' I t'ink de las' long res'
  Gwine to sooth my sperrit best'
Ef I's layin' 'mong de t'ings I's allus knowed.