Lyrics of a Lowly Life

Paul Laurence Dunbar

• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781513295572
• eBook ISBN: 9781513295572
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896) is a collection of poems by African American author Paul Laurence Dunbar. Published while Dunbar was at a turning point in his career as one of the nation's leading black poets, Lyrics of Lowly Life combined his hugely successful volumes Oak and Ivy (1892) and Majors and Minors (1896), establishing his reputation as an artist with a powerful vision of faith and perseverance who sought to capture and examine the diversity of the African American experience. In "The Poet and His Song, " Dunbar compares the art of poetry to tilling the soil, a slow and painstaking process requiring full commitment, body and soul, to the task at hand: "My days are never days of ease; / I till my ground and prune my trees. / When ripened gold is all the plain, / I put my sickle to the grain. / I labor hard, and toil and sweat, / While others dream within the dell; / But even while my brow is wet, / I sing my song, and all is well." For Dunbar, the reward is the song itself, both an act of labor and a celebration of life, emphasizing the role of the poet as not just a dreamer, but a doer. Throughout this collection, Dunbar explores the role of the poet in society, grounding each poem within his identity as a black man in America. In "Frederick Douglass, " an elegy written for the occasion of the great man's passing, Dunbar makes clear the consequences of pride and defiance in a nation built by slaves: "He dared the lightning in the lightning's track, / And answered thunder with his thunder back." With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Paul Laurence Dunbar's Lyrics of Lowly Life is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes
• The Poet and His Song
• Retort
• Accountability
• Frederick Douglass
• Life
• The Lesson
• The Rising of the Storm
• Sunset
• The Old Apple-Tree
• A Prayer
• Passion and Love
• The Seedling
• Promise
• Fulfilment
• Song
• An Ante-Bellum Sermon
• Ode to Ethiopia
• The Corn-Stalk Fiddle
• The Master-Player
• The Mystery
• Not they Who Soar
• Whittier
• Two Songs
• A Banjo Song
• Longing
• The Path
• The Lawyers’ Way
• Ode for Memorial Day
• Premonition
• Retrospection
• Unexpressed
• Song of Summer
• Spring Song
• To Louise
• The Rivals
• The Lover and the Moon
• Conscience and Remorse
• Ione
• Religion
• Deacon Jones’ Grievance
• Alice
• After the Quarrel
• Beyond the Years
• After a Visit
• Curtain
• The Spellin’-Bee
• Keep A-Pluggin’ Away
• Night of Love
• Columbian Ode
• A Border Ballad
• An Easy-Goin’ Feller
• A Negro Love Song
• The Dilettante: A Modern Type
• By the Stream
• The Colored Soldiers
• Nature and Art
• After While
• The Ol’ Tunes
• Melancholia
• The Wooing
• Merry Autumn
• When De Co’n Pone’s Hot
• Ballad
• The Change Has Come
• Comparison
• A Corn-Song
• Discovered
• Disappointed
• Invitation to Love
• He had His Dream
• Good-Night
• A Coquette Conquered
• Nora: A Serenade
• October
• A Summer’s Night
• Ships that Pass in the Night
• The Delinquent
• Dawn
• A Drowsy Day
• Dirge
• Hymn
• Preparation
• The Deserted Plantation
• The Secret
• The Wind and the Sea
• Riding to Town
• We Wear the Mask
• The Meadow Lark
• One Life
• Changing Time
• Dead
• A Confidence
• Phyllis
• Right’s Security
• If
• The Song
• Signs of the Times
• Why Fades a Dream?
• The Sparrow
• Speakin’ O’ Christmas
• Lonesome
• Growin’ Gray
• To the Memory of Mary Young
• When Malindy Sings
• The Party
• A Note About the Author
• A Note from the Publisher