Final Exam

"Song of Myself"

Walt Whitman

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

Walt Whitman

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

Walt Whitman

"The Wound-Dresser"

Walt Whitman

112 "Success is counted sweetest"

122 "These are the days when Birds come back - "

320 "There's a certain Slant of light"

339 "I like a look of Agony"

353 "I'm ceded - I've stopped being Their's - "

359 "A Bird, came down the Walk - "

373 "This World is not conclusion"

446 "This was a Poet - "

620 "Much Madness is divinest Sense - "

1263 "Tell all the truth but tell it slant - "

Emily Dickinson

“Bartleby, the Scrivener"

Herman Melville

• characters: narrator, Bartleby, Nippers, Turkey, Ginger Nut

Life in the Iron Mills

Rebecca Harding Davis

“The Wound Dresser”

Walt Whitman

“The Portent”

Herman Melville

“Rodman the Keeper”

Constance Fenimore Woolson

“The Wife of his Youth”

Charles Chesnutt

“When Malindy Sings”

Paul Laurence Dunbar

“We Wear the Mask”

Paul Laurence Dunbar

“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— / This debt we pay to human guile; / With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, / And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise, / In counting all our tears and sighs? / Nay, let them only see us, while / We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries / To thee from tortured souls arise. / We sing, but oh the clay is vile / Beneath our feet, and long the mile; / But let the world dream otherwise, / We wear the mask!

“Sympathy”

Paul Laurence Dunbar

“Daisy Miller: A Study”

Henry James

“The Souls of Black Folk”

W.E.B. DuBois

“Through me many long dumb voices, / Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, / Voices of the diseas’d and despairing, and of thieves and dwarfs. / Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, / And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff, / And of the rights of them the others are down upon, / Of the deform’d, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, / Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.“

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman

“To Build a Fire”

Jack London

“Désirée’s Baby”

Kate Chopin

“The Story of an Hour”

Kate Chopin

“The Storm”

Kate Chopin

“In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport”

Emma Lazarus

“1492”

Emma Lazarus

“The New Colossus”

Emma Lazarus, poem

Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto

Abraham Cahan

“The School Days of an Indian Girl”

Zitkala-Sa

“The Soft-Hearted Sioux”

Zitkala-Sa

“Why I am a Pagan”

Zitkala-Sa

Impressions of an Indian Childhood

Zitkala-Sa

“Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian”

Sui Sin Far

“Mrs. Spring Fragrance”

Sui Sin Far

“Our America”

José Martí

Impression of an Indian Childhood

Zitkala-Sa

The School Days of an Indian Girl

Zitkala-Sa

“The Soft-Hearted Sioux”

Zitkala-Sa

“Why I am a Pagan”

Zitkala-Sa

“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul,I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death.Creeds and schools in abeyance,Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,Nature without check with original energy”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,I am mad for it to be in contact with me.”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,And you must not be abased to the other.Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“"A child saidWhat is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd feet,And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corne”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,And of these one and all I weave the song of myself”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“I am an old artillerist,I tell of my fort's bombardment,I am there again.Again the long roll of the drummers,Again the attacking cannon, mortars,Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.I take part, I see and hear the whole,The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots,The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip,Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs,The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped explosion,The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

“I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,And filter and fibre your blood.Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you”

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face!Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face.Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me!On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose,And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman

It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,The dark threw its patches down upon me also,The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward,Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us,We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,You furnish your parts toward eternity,Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine,One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the sam

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.

“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth's superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind —

Emily Dickinson

This was a Poet –It is ThatDistills amazing senseFrom Ordinary Meanings –And Attar so immenseFrom the familiar speciesThat perished by the Door –We wonder it was notOurselvesArrested it – before –Of Pictures, the Discloser –The Poet – it is He –Entitles Us – by Contrast –To ceaseless Poverty –Of Portion – so unconscious –The Robbing – could not harm –Himself – to Him – a Fortune –Exterior – to Time –

Emily Dickinson

I like a look of Agony,Because I know it's true—Men do not sham Convulsion,Nor simulate, a Throe—The Eyes glaze once—and that is Death—Impossible to feignThe Beads upon the ForeheadBy homely Anguish strung.

Emily Dickinson

There's a certain Slant of light,Winter Afternoons –That oppresses, like the HeftOf Cathedral Tunes –Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –We can find no scar,But internal difference –Where the Meanings, are –None may teach it – Any –'Tis the seal Despair –An imperial afflictionSent us of the Air –When it comes, the Landscape listens –Shadows – hold their breath –When it goes, 'tis like the DistanceOn the look of Death –

Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

Emily Dickinson

This World is not Conclusion.A Species stands beyond -Invisible, as Music -But positive, as Sound -It beckons, and it baffles - Philosophy, dont know - And through a Riddle, at the last - Sagacity, must go -To guess it, puzzles scholars -To gain it, Men have borneContempt of GenerationsAnd Crucifixion, shown -Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies - Blushes, if any see - Plucks at a twig of Evidence - And asks a Vane, the way - Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -Strong Hallelujahs roll - Narcotics cannot still the ToothThat nibbles at the soul

Emily Dickinson

These are the days when Birds come back –A very few – a Bird or two,To take a final look –These are the days when skies resumeThe old – old sophistries of June –A blue and gold mistake.Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee,Almost thy plausibilityInduces my belief,Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,And swiftly thro' the altered airHurries a timid leaf –Oh Sacrament of summer days!Oh last Communion in the Haze –Permit a Child to join –Thy sacred emblems to partake –Thy consecrated bread to take –And thine immortal wine –

Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk -He did not know I saw—He bit an Angle Worm in halvesAnd ate the fellow, raw,And then, he drank a DewFrom a convenient Grass—And then hopped sidewise to the WallTo let a Beetle pass -He glanced with rapid eyes,That hurried all abroad—They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,He stirred his Velvet Head. -Like one in danger, Cautious,I offered him a Crumb,And he unrolled his feathers,And rowed him softer Home—Than Oars divide the Ocean,Too silver for a seam,Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,Leap, plashless as they swim

Emily Dickinson

Much Madness is divinest Sense

To a discerning Eye—

Much Sense—the starkest Madness—

‘

Tis the Majority

In this, as All, prevail—

Assent—and you are sane—

Demur—you’re straightaway dangerous—

And handled with a Chain—

Emily Dickinson

I'm ceded -- I've stopped being Their's --The name They dropped upon my faceWith water, in the country churchIs finished using, now,And They can put it with my Dolls,My childhood, and the string of spools,I've finished threading -- too --Baptized, before, without the choice,But this time, consciously, of Grace --Unto supremest name --Called to my Full -- The Crescent dropped --Existence's whole Arc, filled up,With one small Diadem.My second Rank -- too small the first --Crowned -- Crowing -- on my Father's breast --A half unconscious Queen --But this time -- Adequate -- Erect,With Will to choose, or to reject,And I choose, just a Crown -

Emily Dickinson

While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby,that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report which will appear in the sequel.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an eminentlysafe man.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

...Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him...It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar cause—indigestion—the irritability and consequent nervousness of Nippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon he was comparatively mild. So that Turkey’s paroxysms only coming on about twelve o’clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers’ was on, Turkey’s was off; andvice versa. This was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word.... It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance....Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanlynonchalance, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strange effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate to him, and order him away from his own premises.

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went close up to him; stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemed profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death

“Bartleby, The Scrivener” by Herman Melville

Hanging from the beam,

Slowly swaying (such the law),

Gaunt the shadow on your green,

Shenandoah!

The cut is on the crown

(Lo, John Brown),

And the stabs shall heal no more.

Hidden in the cap

Is the anguish none can draw;

So your future veils its face,

Shenandoah!

But the streaming beard is shown

(Weird John Brown),

The meteor of the war.

“The Portent” by Herman Melville (whole poem)

From the back-window I can see a narrow brick-yard sloping down to the river-side, strewed with rain-butts and tubs. The river, dull and tawny-colored, (la belle riviere!) drags itself sluggishly along, tired of the heavy weight of boats and coal-barges. What wonder? When I was a child, I used to fancy a look of weary, dumb appeal upon the face of the negro-like river slavishly bearing its burden day after day. Something of the same idle notion comes to me to-day, when from the street-window I look on the slow stream of human life creeping past, night and morning, to the great mills. Masses of men, with dull, besotted faces bent to the ground, sharpened here and there by pain or cunning; skin and muscle and flesh begrimed with smoke and ashes; stooping all night over boiling caldrons of metal, laired by day in dens of drunkenness and infamy; breathing from infancy to death an air saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness for soul and body

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

What do you make of a case like that, amateur psychologist? You call it an altogether serious thing to be alive: to these men it is a drunken jest, a joke...

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

There is a curious point for you to settle, my friend, who study psychology in a lazy, dilettante way. Stop a moment. I am going to be honest. This is what I

want you to do. I want you to hide your disgust, take no heed to your clean

clothes, and come right down with me--here into the thickest of the fog and

mud and foul effluvia. I want you to hear this story.

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

You laugh at it? Are pain and jealousy less savage realities down here in this place I am taking you to than in your own house or your own heart,--your heart, which they clutch at sometimes? The note is the same, I fancy, be the octave high or low.

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

I want you to come down and look at this Wolfe, standing there among the lowest of his kind, and see him just as he is, that you may judge him justly when you hear the story of this night. I want you to look back, as he does every day, at his birth in vice, his starved infancy: to remember the heavy years he has groped through as boy and man,--the slow, heavy year of constant, hot work

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

Miserable enough she looked, lying there on the ashes like a limp, dirty rag,—yet not an unfitting figure to crown the scene of hopeless discomfort and veiled crime: more fitting, if one looked deeper into the heart of things, at her thwarted woman’s form, her colorless life, her waking stupor that smothered pain and hunger

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

Sometimes,—to-night, for instance,—the

curtain is accidentally drawn back, and I

see a bare arm stretched out imploringly in

the darkness, and an eager, wolfish face

watching mine: a wan, woeful face, through

which the spirit of the dead korl-cutter

looks out, with its thwarted life, its mighty

hunger, its unfinished work.

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

His soul within him was smothering

to death; he wanted so much,

thought so much, and knew—

nothing. There was nothing of which

he was certain, except the mill and

things there. Of God and heaven he

had heard so little, that they were to

him what fairy-land is to a child:

something real, but not here; very far

off. His brain, greedy, dwarfed, full of

thwarted energy and unused powers,

questioned these men and women

going by, coldly, bitterly, that night

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

She felt by instinct, although she could not comprehend it, the finer nature of the man, which made him among his fellow-workmen something unique, set apart. In the mill he was known as one of the girl-men: “Molly Wolfe” was his sobriquet. He was never seen in the cockpit, did not own a terrier, drank but seldom; when he did, desperately. He fought sometimes, but was always thrashed, pommeled to a jelly. The man was game enough, when his blood was up: but he was no favorite in the mill; he had the taint of school-learning on him....

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

Miserable enough she looked, lying there on the ashes like a limp, dirty rag,—yet not an unfitting figure to crown the scene of hopeless discomfort and veiled crime: more fitting, if one looked deeper into the heart of things, at her thwarted woman's form, her colorless life, her waking stupor that smothered pain and hunger,—even more fit to be a type of her class. Deeper yet if one could look, was there nothing worth reading in this wet, faded thing, halfcovered with ashes? no story of a soul filled with groping passionate love, heroic unselfishness, fierce jealousy? of years of weary trying to please the one human being whom she loved, to gain one look of real heart-kindness from him? If anything like this were hidden beneath the pale, bleared eyes, and dull, washed-out-looking face, no one had ever taken the trouble to read its faint signs...

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

He went to Wolfe and put his hand kindly on his arm. Something of a vague idea possessed the Doctor’s brain that much good was to be done here by a friendly word or two: a latent genius to be warmed into life by a waited for sunbeam. Here it was: he had brought it. So he went on complacently:-- “Do you know, boy, you have it in you to be a great sculptor, a great man?”

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

His right! The word struck him....His right! Why did this

chance word cling to him so obstinately? Do you hear the fierce devils whisper in his ear, as he went slowly down the darkening street?

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

Nothing remains to tell that the poor Welsh puddler once lived, but this figure of the mill-woman cut in korl. I have it here in a corner of my library. I keep it hid behind a curtain,--it is such a rough, ungainly thing. Yet there are about it touches, grand sweeps of outline, that show a master’s hand. Sometimes,--to-night, for instance,--the curtain is accidentally drawn back, and I see a bare arm stretched out imploringly in the darkness, and an eager, wolfish face watching mine: a wan, woeful face, through which the spirit of the dead korl-cutter looks out, with its thwarted life, its mighty hunger, its unfinished work

“Life in the Iron Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis

I am faithful, I do not give out;

The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,

These and more I dress with impassive hand—(yet

deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)

Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,

Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,

The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,

I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,

Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,

(Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested,

Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips

“The Wound-Dresser” by Walt Whitman

“There is nothing there,” said the man outside, making an effort to speak carelessly; “my servant went to town for supplies. Do not trouble yourself to wait; he will come presently, and—and—I want nothing.” But Rodman saw through proud poverty’s lie; he knew that irregular quavering of the voice, and the trembling of the hand; the poor fellow had but one to tremble. He continued his search; but the bare room gave back nothing, not a crumb

“Rodman the Keeper” by Constance Fenimore Woolson

But now the points for which he had fought being gained, and strife ended, it was the plain duty of every man to encourage peace. For his part he bore no malice; he was glad the poor Confederate was up in the cottage, and he did not think nay the less of the keeper for bringing him there....If Blank Rodman did not say this, at least the keeper imagined that he did....“We do not object to the brave soldier who honestly fought for his cause, even though he fought on the other side,” answered Blank Rodman for the whole fourteen thousand. “But never let a coward, a double-face, or a flippant-tongued idler walk over our heads. It would make us rise in our grave

“Rodman the Keeper” by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Miss Ward turned upon him fiercely. “Do you, who have lived among us, dare to pretend that the state of our servants is not worse this moment than ever was before?” “Transition.” “A horrible transition!” “Horrible, but inevitable; education will be the savior. Had I fifty millionsto spend on the South to-morrow, every cent should go for schools, and for schools alone.”

“Rodman the Keeper” by Constance Fenimore Woolson

It was a pathetic sight to see some of the old men and women, ignorant field-hands, bent, dull-eyed, and past the possibility of education even in its simplest forms

...an old black freedman allowing himself to be taught the alphabet in order to gain permission to wait on his master,--master no longer in law,--with all the devotion of his loving old heart. For the keeper had announced to Pomp that he must learn his alphabet or go; after all these years of theory, he, as a New Englander, could not stand by and see previous knowledge shut from the black man. So he opened it; and mighty dull work he found it

“Rodman the Keeper” by Constance Fenimore Woolson

A week later the keeper strolled over towards the old house. It was twilight, but the new owner was still at work. He was one of those sandy-haired, energetic Maine men, who, probably on the principle of extremes, were often found through the South, making new homes for themselves in the pleasant land. “Pulling down the old house, are you?” said the keeper, leaning idly on the gate, which was already flanked by a new fence. “Yes,” replied the Maine man, pausing; “it was only an old shell, just ready to tumble on our heads. You’re the keeper over yonder, an’t you?” (He already knew everybody within a circle of five miles.) “Yes. I think I should like those vines if you have no use for them,” said Rodman, pointing to the uprooted greenery that once screened the old piazza. “Wuth about twenty-five cents, I guess,” said the Maine man, handing them over.

“Rodman the Keeper” by Constance Fenimore Woolson

We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—This debt we pay to human guile;With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties.Why should the world be over-wise,In counting all our tears and sighs?Nay, let them only see us, whileWe wear the mask.We smile, but, O great Christ, our criesTo thee from tortured souls arise.We sing, but oh the clay is vileBeneath our feet, and long the mile;But let the world dream otherwise,We wear the mask

“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

G’way an’ quit dat noise, Miss Lucy—Put dat music book away;What’s de use to keep on tryin’?Ef you practise twell you ‘re gray,You cain’t sta’t no notes a–flyin’Lak de ones dat rants and ringsF’om de kitchen to be big woodsWhen Malindy sings

“When Malindy Sings” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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 opes,And the faint perfume from its chalice 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 bars;For he must fly back to his perch and clingWhen he fain would be on the bough a–swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scarsAnd 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 bosom sore,—When he beats his bars and he would be free;It is not a carol 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

“Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

“I have no race prejudice," he would say, "but we people of mixed blood are ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Our fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in the black. The one doesn't want us yet, but may take us in time. The other would welcome us, but it would be for us a backward step. 'With malice towards none, with charity for all,' we must do the best we can for ourselves and those who are to follow us. Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

“The Wife of His Youth” by Charles Chesnutt

She was a little woman, not five foot tall and proportioned to her height. Although she stood erect, and looked around her with very bright and restless eyes, she seemed quite old; for her face was crossed and recrossed with a hundred wrinkles, and around the edges of her bonnet could be soon protruding here and there a tuft of short gray wool. She wore a blue calico gown of ancient cut, a little red shawl fastened around her shoulders with an old-fashioned brass brooch, and a large bonnet profusely ornamented with faded red and yellow artificial flowers. And she was very black—so black that her toothless gums, revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She looked like a bit of the old plantation life, summoned from the past by the wave of a magician's wand, as the poet's fancy had called into being the gracious shapes of which Mr. Ryder had just been reading.

“The Wife of His Youth” by Charles Chesnutt

Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois

I remember well when the shadow swept across me. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card—refused it peremptorily. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life, and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois