Page:The complete poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.pdf/44

 When you come to think about it, how it's all planned out it's splendid. Nuthin's done er evah happens, 'dout hit's somefin' dat's intended; Don't keer whut you does, you has to, an' hit sholy beats de dickens,— Viney, go put on de kittle, I got one o' mastah's chickens.  

is over all the teeming lists, And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife; A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists And vapors that obscure the sun of life. And Ethiopia, with bosom torn, Laments the passing of her noblest born. She weeps for him a mother's burning tears— She loved him with a mother's deepest love. He was her champion thro' direful years, And held her weal all other ends above, When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust, He raised her up and whispered, "Hope and Trust." For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung That broke in warning on the ears of men; For her the strong bow of his power he strung, And sent his arrows to the very den Where grim Oppression held his bloody place And gloated o'er the mis'ries of a race. And he was no soft-tongued apologist; He spoke straightforward, fearlessly uncowed; The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist, And set in bold relief each dark hued cloud; To sin and crime he gave their proper hue, And hurled at evil what was evil's due. Through good and ill report he cleaved his way Right onward, with his face set toward the heights, Nor feared to face the foeman's dread array,— The lash of scorn, the sting of petty spites, 