The Complete Poems Of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Paul Laurence Dunbar

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СКАЧАТЬ the dimness of its pages,

      So long consigned to rayless night,

      He shed the glory of his light.

      We read them well, we read them long,

      And ever thrilling did we see

      That love ruled all humanity,—

      The master passion, pure and strong.

III

      To-day my skies are bare and ashen,

      And bend on me without a beam.

      Since love is held the master-passion,

      Its loss must be the pain supreme—

      And grinning Fate has wrecked my dream.

      But pardon, dear departed Guest,

      I will not rant, I will not rail;

      For good the grain must feel the flail;

      There are whom love has never blessed.

      I had and have a younger brother,

      One whom I loved and love to-day

      As never fond and doting mother

      Adored the babe who found its way

      From heavenly scenes into her day.

      Oh, he was full of youth’s new wine,—

      A man on life’s ascending slope,

      Flushed with ambition, full of hope;

      And every wish of his was mine.

      A kingly youth; the way before him

      –

      Was thronged with victories to be won;

      So joyous, too, the heavens o’er him

      Were bright with an unchanging sun,—

      His days with rhyme were overrun.

      Toil had not taught him Nature’s prose,

      Tears had not dimmed his brilliant eyes,

      And sorrow had not made him wise;

      His life was in the budding rose.

      I know not how I came to waken,

      Some instinct pricked my soul to sight;

      My heart by some vague thrill was shaken,—

      A thrill so true and yet so slight,

      I hardly deemed I read aright.

      As when a sleeper, ign’rant why,

      Not knowing what mysterious hand

      Has called him out of slumberland,

      Starts up to find some danger nigh.

      Love is a guest that comes, unbidden,

      But, having come, asserts his right;

      He will not be repressed nor hidden.

      And so my brother’s dawning plight

      Became uncovered to my sight.

      Some sound-mote in his passing tone

      Caught in the meshes of my ear;

      Some little glance, a shade too dear,

      Betrayed the love he bore Ione.

      What could I do? He was my brother,

      And young, and full of hope and trust;

      I could not, dared not try to smother

      His flame, and turn his heart to dust.

      I knew how oft life gives a crust

      To starving men who cry for bread;

      But he was young, so few his days,

      He had not learned the great world’s ways,

      Nor Disappointment’s volumes read.

      However fair and rich the booty,

      I could not make his loss my gain.

      For love is dear, but dearer duty,

      –

      And here my way was clear and plain.

      I saw how I could save him pain.

      And so, with all my day grown dim,

      That this loved brother’s sun might shine,

      I joined his suit, gave over mine,

      And sought Ione, to plead for him.

      I found her in an eastern bower,

      Where all day long the am’rous sun

      Lay by to woo a timid flower.

      This day his course was well-nigh run,

      But still with lingering art he spun

      Gold fancies on the shadowed wall.

      The vines waved soft and green above,

      And there where one might tell his love,

      I told my griefs—I told her all!

      I told her all, and as she hearkened,

      A tear-drop fell upon her dress.

      With grief her flushing brow was darkened;

      One sob that she could not repress

      Betrayed the depths of her distress.

      Upon her grief my sorrow fed,

      And I was bowed with unlived years,

      My heart swelled with a sea of tears,

      The tears my manhood could not shed.

      The world is Rome, and Fate is Nero,

      Disporting in the hour of doom.

      God made us men; times make the hero—

      But СКАЧАТЬ