The Garland: ‘I know why the caged bird sings!’
The writer Paul Laurence Dunbar is celebrated as the first important black poet in American literature. He was highly acclaimed even in his own time, by the likes of James Weldon Johnson, James Newton Matthew, and James Whitcomb Riley.
Dunbar’s first volume of poetry, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1893 with editorial assistance from friend and former classmate Orville Wright (one of the famous flying brothers). The volume included what remains perhaps Dunbar’s most popular poem—”Sympathy,” in which he uses the image of a caged bird to movingly express the plight of blacks in American society.
I first read this poem in high-school in my American Literature textbook, and was immediately pierced by its poignancy. Repeated readings never fail to bring my heart to a near-bursting point of pity. The poem reminds me of my father, who hates the sight of a caged bird. “They have wings because they are meant to fly,” he says.
°The Garland is my personal anthology of poems. I have been transcribing these by hand in a leather journal, but also wanted to use my blog to share the poems and my thoughts.
Sympathy
Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feel, 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!
Painting: The Bird Cage. Frederick Carl Frieseke.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012