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,
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!
Oranges by Gary Soto
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The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted –
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
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40
45
51
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.
Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.
The Ballad of William Sycamore
by Stephen Vincent Benet
The eldest died at the Alamo. The youngest fell with Custer. My father, he was a mountaineer, His fist was a knotty hammer; He was quick on his feet as a running deer,
And he spoke with a Yankee stammer. The letter that told it burned my hand. Yet we smiled and said, 'So be it!' But I could not live when they fenced the land,
For it broke my heart to see it. My mother, she was merry and brave, And so she came to her labor, With a tall green fir for her doctor grave And a stream for her comforting neighbor. I saddled a red, unbroken colt And rode him into the day there; And he threw me down like a thunderbolt
And rolled on me as I lay there. And some are wrapped in the linen fine, And some like a godling's scion; But I was cradled on twigs of pine And the skin of a mountain lion. The hunter's whistle hummed in my ear As the city-men tried to move me, And I died in my boots like a pioneer With the whole wide sky above me.
And some remember a white, starched lap
And a ewer with silver handles; But I remember a coonskin cap And the smell of bayberry candles. Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil, Like the seed of a prairie-thistle; It has washed my bones with honey and oil And picked them clean as a whistle. And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring, And my sons, like the wild-geese flying; And I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing And have much content in my dying. The cabin logs, with the bark still rough, And my mother who laughed at trifles, And the tall, lank visitors, brown as snuff, With their long, straight squirrel-rifles.
I can hear them dance, like a foggy song,
Through the deepest one of my slumbers, The fiddle squeaking the boots along
And my father calling the numbers. The quick feet shaking the puncheon-floor, And the fiddle squealing and squealing,
Till the dried herbs rattled above the door And the dust went up to the ceiling. There are children lucky from dawn till dusk, But never a child so lucky! For I cut my teeth on 'Money Musk' In the Bloody Ground of Kentucky! When I grew tall as the Indian corn,
My father had little to lend me, But he gave me his great, old powder-horn And his woodsman's skill to befriend me. With a leather shirt to cover my back, And a redskin nose to unravel Each forest sign, I carried my pack As far as a scout could travel. Go play with the towns you have built of blocks, The towns where you would have bound me! I sleep in my earth like a tired fox, And my buffalo have found me.
Winter by William Shakespeare
When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When Blood is nipped and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Till I lost my boyhood and found my wife, A girl like a Salem clipper! A woman straight as a hunting-knife With as eyes as bright as the Dipper! We cleared our camp where the buffalo feed, Unheard-of streams were our flagons; And I sowed my sons like the apple-seed On the trail of the Western wagons. They were right, tight boys, never sulky or slow, A fruitful, a goodly muster. Incident in a Rose Garden by Donald Justice
Gardener: Sir, I encountered Death Just now among our roses
Thin as a scythe he stood there.
I did not answer them.
I knew him by his pictures
He had on his black coat
Black gloves, and broad black hat.
I think he would have spoken, Seeing his mouth stood open.
Big it was, with white teeth.
As soon as he beckoned,
I ran.
I ran until I found you.
Sir, I'm quitting my job.
I want to see my sons
Once more before I die.
I want to see California.
Master: Sir, you must be that stranger
Who threatened my gardener.
This is my property, sir.
I welcome only friends here.
Death: Sir, I knew your father.
And we were friends at the end.
As for your gardener, I did not threaten him.
Old men mistake my gestures.
I only meant to ask him
To show me to his master.
I take it you are he?
There was a bird, brought down to die;
They said, "A hundred fill the sky-
What reason to be sad?"
There was a girl, whose lover fled;
I did not wait, while they said,
"There's many another lad."
Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Fame is a bee by Emily Dickinson
Fame is a bee.
It has a song -It has a sting -Ah, too, it has a wing.
The Princess by Sara Henderson Hay
I'll ask for a red rose blossoming in the snow,
A music box hid in a walnut shell,
Nine golden apples on a silver bough,
A mirror that can speak, and cast a spell.
I'll send them east of the moon, and west of the sun
For a wishing ring made of a dragon's claw...
And they will fail, just as the rest have done,
And I can stay home, with dear papa.
Oh sometimes in my silken bed I wake
All of a shiver, and my hair on end,
Because again the terrible dream has occurred:
What if one of those suitors should come back
With the impossible trophy in his hand,
And I should have to keep my foolish word!
Solace by Dorothy Parker
There was a rose that faded young;
I saw its shattered beauty hung
Upon a broken stem.
I heard them say, "What need to care
With roses budding everywhere?"
To a Waterfowl by Wiliam Cullen Bryant
Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chaféd ocean side?
There is a Power, whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—
The desert and illimitable air
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end,
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form, yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must trace alone,
Will lead my steps aright.