Voices of the harlem renaissance

“Harlem,” by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred?       Does it dry up       like a raisin in the sun?       Or fester like a sore—       And then run?       Does it stink like rotten meat?       Or crust and sugar over—       like a syrupy sweet?       Maybe it just sags       like a heavy load.       Or does it explode?

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)                         Sympathy     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 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!

“The Bird in the Cage”-Mary Effie Lee I am not better than my brother over the way, But he has a bird in the cage and I have not. It beats its little fretted green wings Against the wires of its prison all day long. Backward and forward it leaps, While summer air is tender and the shadows of leaves Rock on the ground, And the earth is cool and heated in spots, And the air from rich herbage rises teeming, And gold of suns spills all around, And birds within the maples And birds upon the oaks fly and sing and flutter. And there is that little green prisoner, Tossing its body forward and up, Backward and forth mechanically! I listen for its hungry little song, Which comes unsatisfying, Like drops of dew dispelled by drought. O, rosebud doomed to ripen in a bud vase! O, bird of song within that binding cage! Nay, I am not better than my brother over the way, Only he has a bird in a cage and I have not. The cage metaphor as a have/have not situation

Paul Lawrence Dunbar We Wear the Mask     WE wear the mask that grins and lies,     It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—     This debt we pay to human guile;     With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,     And mouth with myriad subtleties.     Why should the world be over-wise,     In counting all our tears and sighs?     Nay, let them only see us, while             We wear the mask.     We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries     To thee from tortured souls arise.     We sing, but oh the clay is vile     Beneath our feet, and long the mile;     But let the world dream otherwise,             We wear the mask!