#TheSealeyChallenge- day #22 – James D. Corrothers – Paul Laurence Dunbar

James D. Corrothers – Paul Laurence Dunbar
From Kerlin, 1923. Negro Poets and Their Poems

He came, a dark youth, singing in the dawn

Of a new freedom, glowing o’er his lyre,
Refining, as with great Apollo’s fire,

His people’s gift of song. And, thereupon,
This Negro singer, come to Helicon,
Constrained the masters, listening, to admire,
And roused a race to wonder and aspire,
Gazing which way their honest voice was gone,
With ebon face uplit of glory’s crest.
Men marveled at the singer, strong and sweet,
Who brought the cabin’s mirth, the tuneful night,
But faced the morning, beautiful with light,

To die while shadows yet fell toward the west,
And leave his laurels at his people’s feet.

Dunbar, no poet wears your laurels now;   
None rises, singing, from your race like you.   
Dark melodist, immortal, though the dew   
Fell early on the bays upon your brow,
And tinged with pathos every halcyon vow   
And brave endeavor.  Silence o’er you threw   
Flowerets of love.   Or, if an envious few   
Of your own people brought no garlands, how
Could malice smite him whom the gods had crowned?   
If, like the meadow-lark, your flight was low,   
Your flooded lyrics half the hilltops drowned;
A wide world heard you, and it loved you so,   
It stilled its heart to list the strains you sang.   
And o’er your happy songs its plaudits rang.