Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Living near Dayton, I would be remiss not to mention Paul Lawrence Dunbar as a poet beginning with the letter "D."  Dunbar, I learned, was the son of two ex-slaves, a classmate of Orville Wright, and a friend of Frederick Douglass.  He did receive attention for his writing while he was alive--though he died at the young age of thirty-three.

The Debt

By Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

This is the debt I pay

Just for one riotous day,

Years of regret and grief,

Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end —

Until the grave, my friend,

Gives me a true release —

Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,

Small was the debt I thought,

Poor was the loan at best —

God! but the interest!

 

The University of Dayton sponsors a website for futher study of Dunbar:  Paul Lawrence Dunbar .