Paul Laurence Dunbar: Collected Lyrics

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Public-domain lyrics

Unexpressed

Paul Laurence Dunbar

“Unexpressed” as printed in The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1913).

Paul Laurence Dunbar: Collected Lyrics Text 137 1913 · historical text

Complete public-domain lyrics

This text comes from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.

Verse 1

Deep in my heart that aches with the repression,

And strives with plenitude of bitter pain,

There lives a thought that clamors for expression,

And spends its undelivered force in vain.

Verse 2

What boots it that some other may have thought it?

The right of thoughts' expression is divine;

The price of pain I pay for it has bought it,

I care not who lays claim to it—’tis mine!

Verse 3

And yet not mine until it be delivered;

The manner of its birth shall prove the test.

Alas, alas, my rock of pride is shivered—

I beat my brow—the thought still unexpressed.

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