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(“Our laws have not yet reached the point of holding that property which is the result of the husband’s earnings and the wife’s savings becomes their joint property….In this most important of all partnerships there is no partnership property.”—Recent decision of the New York Supreme Court.)

Lady, share the praise I obtain

            Now and again;

Though I’m shy, it doesn’t matter,

I will tell you how they flatter:

Every compliment I’ll share

            Fair and square.

Lady, I my toil will divide

            At your side;

I outside the home, you within;

You shall wash and cook and spin,

I’ll provide the flax and food,

            If you’re good.

Partners, lady, we shall be,

            You and me,

Partners in the highest sense

Looking for no recompense,

For, the savings that we make,

            I shall take. 

Again my fancy takes its flight,
And soars away on thoughtful wing,
Again my soul thrills with delight,
And this the fancied theme, I sing,
From Earthly scenes awhile, I find release,
And dwell upon the restful Plains of Peace.

The Plains of Peace are passing fair,
Where naught disturbs and naught can harm,
I find no sorrow, woe or care,
These all are lost in perfect calm,
Bright are the joys, and pleasures never cease,
For those who dwell on the Plains of Peace.

No scorching sun or blighting storm,
No burning sand or desert drear,
No fell disease or wasting form,
To mar the glowing beauty here.
Decay and ruin ever must decrease,
Here on the fertile, healthful Plains of Peace.

What rare companionship I find,
What hours of social joy I spend,
What restfulness pervades my mind,
Communing with congenial friend.
True happiness seems ever to increase,
While dwelling here upon the Plains of Peace.

Ambitions too, are realized,
And that which I have sought on earth,
I find at last idealized,
My longings ripen into worth,
My fondest hopes no longer fear decease,
But bloom forth brightly on the Plains of Peace.

‘Tis by my fancy, yet ’tis true,
That somewhere having done with Earth,
We shall another course pursue,
According to our aim or worth,
Our souls from mortal things must find release,
And dwell immortal on the Plains of Peace.

Dedicated to the memory of Paul Laurence Dunbar

Oh, Poet of our Race,
We reverence thy name
As thy hist’ry we retrace,
Which enfolds thy widespread fame.
We loved thee, yea, too well,
But He dids’t love thee more
And called thee up with Him to dwell
On that Celestial shore.
Thy sorrows here on earth,
Yea, more than thou coulds’t bear,
Burdened thee from birth
E’en in their visions fair.
And thou, adored of men,
Whose bed might been of flowers,
With mighty stroke of pen
Expressed thy sad, sad hours.

Thou hast been called above,
Where all is peace and rest,
To dwell in boundless love,
Eternally and blest.
And, yet, thou still dost linger near,
For thy words, as sweetest flowers,
Do grow in beauty ’round us here
To cheer us in saddest hours.
Thy thoughts in rapture seem to soar
So far, yea, far above,
And shower a heavy downpour
Of sparkling, glittering love.
Thou, with stroke of mighty pen,
Hast told of joy and mirth,
And read the hearts and souls of men
As cradled from their birth.
The language of the flowers,
Thou hast read them all,
And e’en the little brook
Responded to thy call.
All Nature hast communed
And lingered, yea, with thee,
Their secrets were entombed
But thou hast made them free.
Oh, Poet of our Race,
Thou dost soar above;
No paths wilt thou retrace
But those of peace and love.
Thy pilgrimage is done,
Thy toils on earth are o’er,
Thy victor’s crown is won,
Thou’lt rest forever more.

A crimson fire that vanquishes the stars;
A pungent odor from the dusty sage;
A sudden stirring of the huddled herds;
A breaking of the distant table-lands
Through purple mists ascending, and the flare
Of water ditches silver in the light;
A swift, bright lance hurled low across the world;
A sudden sickness for the hills of home.

Evening and the flat land,
Rich and sombre and always silent;
The miles of fresh-plowed soil,
Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;
The growing wheat, the growing weeds,
The toiling horses, the tired men;
The long empty roads,
Sullen fires of sunset, fading,
The eternal, unresponsive sky.
Against all this, Youth,
Flaming like the wild roses,
Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,
Flashing like a star out of the twilight;
Youth with its insupportable sweetness,
Its fierce necessity,
Its sharp desire,
Singing and singing,
Out of the lips of silence,
Out of the earthy dusk.

Lovers of beauty laugh at this grey town,
     Where dust lies thick on ragged curb-side trees,
And compass-needle streets lead up and down
     And lose themselves in empty prairie seas.

Here is no winding scented lane, no hill
     Crowned with a steepled church, no garden wall
Of old grey stone where lilacs bloom, and fill
     The air with fragrance when the May rains fall.

But here is the unsoftened majesty
     Of the wide earth where all the wide streets end,
And from the dusty corner one may see
     The full moon rise, and flaming sun descend.

The long main street, whence farmers’ teams go forth,
Lies like an old sea road, star-pointed north.

Then the priestess said, Speak to us of Prayer.
     And he answered, saying:
     You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
     
     For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
     And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
     And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
     When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
     Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
     For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
     And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
     Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
     It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

     I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
     God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
     And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
     But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart, 
     And if you but listen in the stillness of the night your shall hear them saying in silence,
     “Our God, who are our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
     It is thy desire in us that desireth.
     It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
     We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
     Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.”

As I lie in bed,
Flat on my back;
There passes across my ceiling
An endless panorama of things—
Quick steps of gay-voiced children,
Adolescence in its wondering silences,
Maid and man on moonlit summer’s eve,
Women in the holy glow of Motherhood,
Old men gazing silently thru the twilight
Into the beyond.
O God, give me words to make my dream-children live.

No uttered word is ours—no solemn tone
   The reverent air bears upward to the sky:
No eloquence of meaning, borne along
   Of voice and accent, meet the God on high.

But dare ye tell us that we do not pray—
   We who so truly “lift up hands of prayer,”
And by the speaking gesture mark the way,
   Our heart’s desire would take to reach Him there?

“Our Father!” that appealing gesture lifts.
   With force more potent than the spoken word,
Desire, petition for the precious gift
   Held in the hand of One All-Seeing Lord.

“In Heaven!” we picture in the circling sweep
   Of arm and hand, the glorious dome above;
“Holy Thy Name!” with reverent movement keep
   The sacred thought of purity and love.

“Thy Kingdom!” with imperial touch we show.
   The badge of royalty—the sceptre’s sway;
And that Thy glorious Will may work and grow
   Potent and perfect, this and every day.

Our opened hands with daily bread to fill
   The Lord we ask, “Forgive as we forgive”:
O hearing brothers! We are like you still—
   The hardest this to pray, and this to live.

From tempter’s touch, whene’er beside he stands—
   We pray Thee still our weakness to defend:
And by the symbol strong of broken bands
   We crave deliverance, succor, to the end.

Once more the royal sign—“Thy Kingdom Thine!”
   “The Power,” that sign is vital, living, strong:
“The Glory”: rays of brightness seem to shine
   And scintillate around us, sweet and long.

“Forever and forever!” round and round
   The finger sweeps, and who shall tell us then
Expression for the prayer we have not found,
   Nor join us in our glad and grand “Amen”?

Sorrow, quit me for a while!
    Wintry days are over;
Hope again, with April smile,
    Violets sows and clover.

Pleasure follows in her path,
    Love itself flies after,
And the brook a music hath
    Sweet as childhood’s laughter.

Not a bird upon the bough
    Can repress its rapture,
Not a bud that blossoms now
    But doth beauty capture.

Sorrow, thou art Winter’s mate,
    Spring cannot regret thee;
Yet, ah, yet—my friend of late—
    I shall not forget thee!