Poems

 SYMPTOMS OF LOVE

 Love is a universal migraine, 

A bright stain on the vision 

Blotting out reason. 

Symptoms of true love 

Are leanness, jealousy, 

Laggard dawns;

 Are omens and nightmares- 

Listening for a knock. 

Waiting for a sign: 

For a touch of her fingers 

In a darkened room, 

For a searching look 

Take courage, lover! 

Could you endure such pain 

At any hand but hers? 

(Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry and Drama, McGraw-Hill, 2000)

 

 

“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 opens, 

And the faint perfume from its petals 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 bans; 

For he must fly back for his perch and cling 

When he rather would be on the branch 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 blossom sore, 

When he beats his bars and would be free; 

It is not a song 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 !

 (Adapted from the poem by Paul Lawrence DunbarIn American Negropoetry,edited by Arna Bontemps)