Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Because I had loved so deeply,
  Because I had loved so long,
God in His great compassion
  Gave me the gift of song.

Because I have loved so vainly,
  And sung with such faltering breath,
The Master in infinite mercy
  Offers the boon of Death.

Online text © 1998-2009 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar | Dodd, Mead And Company, 1922

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