Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart.
She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.
She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;
Any shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.
Now another day is breaking,
Sleep was sweet and so is waking.
Dear lord, I promised you last night
Never again to sulk or fight.
Such vows are easier to keep
When a child is sound asleep.
Today, O Lord, for your dear sake,
I’ll try to keep them when awake.
With this round glass
I can make magic talk—
A myriad shell show
In a scrap of chalk;
Of but an inch of moss
A forest—flowers and trees;
A drop of water
Like a hive of bees.
I lie in wait and watch
How the deft spider jets
The woven web-silk
From his spinnerets;
What tigerish claws he has!
And oh, the silly flies
That stumble into his snare—
With all those eyes!
Not even the tiniest thing
By this my magic glass
Will make more marvelous
And itself surpass.
Yes, and with lenses like it,
Eyeing the moon,
‘Twoud seem you’d walk there
In an afternoon!
‘Magnifying Glass’ was published in Bells and Grass, a 1941 collection of Walter de la Mare’s poems for children.
Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orb a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing, with reluctant feet.,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing with a timid glance,
On the brooklet’s swift advance,
On the river’s broad expanse!
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.
Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye
Sees the falcon’s shadow fly?
Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract’s roar?
O, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares!
Care and age come unawares!
Like the swell of some sweet tune
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
Childhood is the bough where slumbered
Birds and blossoms many numbered;—
Age, that bough with snows encumbered.
Gather then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth
In the heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
O, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;
And that smile, like sunshine dart
Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.
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 fist 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!
The writer Paul Laurence Dunbar is celebrated as the first important black poet in American history. He was highly acclaimed even in his own time by the likes of James Weldon, 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.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing me a song, O Please!
A song of ships and sailor men,
And parrots and tropical trees,
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
Which no man ever may find again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sings of the things you know so well.