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Photo of Paul Laurence Dunbar

Laurence Dunbar, Paul

Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life.. African American poet novelist and playwright

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Douglass

 Ah, Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days, 
Such days as thou, not even thou didst know, 
When thee, the eyes of that harsh long ago 
Saw, salient, at the cross of devious ways, 
And all the country heard thee with amaze. 
Not ended then, the passionate ebb and flow, 
The awful tide that battled to and fro; 
We ride amid a tempest of dispraise. 

Now, when the waves of swift dissension swarm, 
And Honour, the strong pilot, lieth stark, 
Oh, for thy voice high-sounding o'er the storm, 
For thy strong arm to guide the shivering bark, 
The blast-defying power of thy form, 
To give us comfort through the lonely dark.



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