Sympathy
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows 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
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old
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!
The above poem was published in Lyrics of the Hearthside by Dodd,
Mead and Company in 1899.~~This is the poem that inspired Maya Angelou's
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Other author posts
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He sang of life, serenely sweet, With, now and then, a deeper note From some high peak, nigh yet remote, He voiced the world's absorbing beat He sang of love when earth was young, And Love, itself, was in his lays
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What dreams we have and how they Like rosy clouds across the sky; Of wealth, of fame, of sure success, Of love that comes to cheer and bless; And how they wither, how they fade, The waning wealth, the jilting jade — The fame that fo...
Frederick Douglass
A hush is over all the teeming lists, And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife; A spirit brave has passed beyond the And vapors that obscure the sun of life
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I am but clay, the sinner plead, Who fed each vain desire Not only clay, another said, But worse, for thou art mire
