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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

The Dove

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Out of the sunshine and out of the heat,
Out of the dust of the grimy street,
A song fluttered down in the form of a dove,
And it bore me a message, the one word—Love!

Ah, I was toiling, and oh, I was sad:
I had forgotten the way to be glad.
Now, smiles for my sadness and for my toil, rest
Since the dove fluttered down to its home in my breast!
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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