Poem of the day
Sympathy
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
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 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,
IWhen 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.”” from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, )
Source: Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2004)
