Worn Out

Read 'Worn Out' by 'Paul Laurence Dunbar' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.

Worn Out by Paul Laurence Dunbar

You bid me hold my peace
And dry my fruitless tears,
Forgetting that I bear
A pain beyond my years.
You say that I should smile
And drive the gloom away;
I would, but sun and smiles
[Pg 287]Have left my life's dark day.
All time seems cold and void,
And naught but tears remain;
Life's music beats for me
A melancholy strain.
I used at first to hope,
But hope is past and, gone;
And now without a ray
My cheerless life drags on.
Like to an ash-stained hearth
When all its fires are spent;
Like to an autumn wood
By storm winds rudely shent,—
So sadly goes my heart,
Unclothed of hope and peace;
It asks not joy again,
But only seeks release.

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