Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

                            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 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!

6

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,

And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.