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Paul Laurence Dunbar Quotes

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began to write stories and verse when still a child; he was president of his high school's literary society. He published his first poems at the age of 16 in a Dayton newspaper.

Much of Dunbar's more popular work in his lifetime was written in the "Negro dialect" associated with the antebellum South, though he also used the Midwestern regional dialect of James Whitcomb Riley. Dunbar's work was praised by William Dean Howells, a leading editor associated with the Harper's Weekly, and Dunbar was one of the first African-American writers to establish an international reputation. He wrote the lyrics for the musical comedy In Dahomey , the first all-African-American musical produced on Broadway in New York. The musical later toured in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Dunbar also wrote in conventional English in other poetry and novels. Since the late 20th century, scholars have become more interested in these other works. Suffering from tuberculosis, which then had no cure, Dunbar died in Dayton, Ohio at the age of 33. Wikipedia  

✵ 27. June 1872 – 9. February 1906
Paul Laurence Dunbar photo

Works

The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Sympathy
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Invitation to Love
Paul Laurence Dunbar
The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar
Sympathy
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Invitation to Love
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Paul Laurence Dunbar: 5 quotes2 likes

Famous Paul Laurence Dunbar Quotes

“It is a little dark still, but there are warnings of the day and somewhere out of the darkness a bird is singing to the Dawn.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Representative American Negroes, an essay from The Negro Problem, a collection of essays written in 1903 by leading African Americans.

“You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar Invitation to Love

Invitation to Love, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

“.. 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.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar book The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar

We Wear The Mask, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Context: 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, O 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!

“I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind blows soft through the springing grass,
And the river floats like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!”

Paul Laurence Dunbar Sympathy

Sympathy, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar; the poem inspired the title of Maya Angelou's book, Why the Caged Bird Sings.

“Because you love me I have much achieved,
Had you despised me then I must have failed,
But since I knew you trusted and believed,
I could not disappoint you and so prevailed.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar book The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar

Encouraged, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

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