Martin Luther King Poems

This poem was written in strict conformity to the account of the incident as I had it from respectable and trustworthy sources. It has since been the subject of a good deal of conf...

Garden of Shushan! After Eden, all terrace, pool, and flower recollect thee: Ye weavers in saffron and haze and Tyrian purple, Tell yet what range in color wakes the eye; Sorcerer,...

If Ah evah git to glory, an' Ah hope to mek it thoo, Ah expec' to hyah a story, an' Ah hope you'll hyah it, too,-- Hit'll kiver Maine to Texas, an' f'om Bosting to Miami,-- Ov de h...

See! There he stands; not brave, but with an air Of sullen stupor. Mark him well! Is he Not more like brute than man? Look in his eye! No light is there; none, save the glint that...

Thomas Barber was shot December 6, 1855, near Lawrence, Kansas. BEAR him, comrades, to his grave; Never over one more brave Shall the prairie grasses weep, In the ages yet to come,...

IN the solemn days of old, Two men met in Boston town, One a tradesman frank and bold, One a preacher of renown. Cried the last, in bitter tone: "Poisoner of the wells of truth Sat...

Ah'm sick, doctor-man, Ah'm sick! Gi' me some'n' to he'p me quick, Don't,--Ah'll die! Tried mighty hard fo' to cure mahse'f; Tried all dem t'ings on de pantry she'f; Couldn' fin' n...

Gone are the sensuous stars, and manifold, Clear sunbeams burst upon the front of night; Ten thousand swords of azure and of gold Give darkness to the dark and welcome light; Acros...

We are children of the sun, Rising sun! Weaving Southern destiny, Waiting for the mighty hour When our Shiloh shall appear With the flaming sword of right, With the steel of brothe...

Come home with me a little space And browse about our ancient place, Lay by your wonted troubles here And have a turn of Christmas cheer. These sober walls of weathered stone Can t...

Oh little Christ, why do you sigh As you look down to-night On breathless France, on bleeding France, And all her dreadful plight? What bows your childish head so low? What turns y...

In the report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting in Charleston, S.C., on the 4th of the ninth month, 1835, published in the Courier of that city, it is stated: "The clergy of al...

O, rich young lord, thou ridest by With looks of high disdain; It chafes me not thy title high, Thy blood of oldest strain. The lady riding at thy side Is but in name thy promised...

Dr. Neall, a worthy disciple of that venerated philanthropist, Warner Mifflin, whom the Girondist statesman, Jean Pierre Brissot, pronounced "an angel of mercy, the best man he eve...

O chillen, run, de Cunjah man, Him mouf ez beeg ez fryin' pan, Him yurs am small, him eyes am raid, Him hab no toof een him ol' haid, Him hab him roots, him wu'k him trick, Him rol...

He's struttin' sho ernuff, Wearin' a lady's muff En' ways erpon his head, Red coat ob reddest red, Purtty white satin ves', Gole braid ercross de ches'; Goo'ness! he cuts a stunt,...

If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing, Then better far the hateful fret, the sting. Better the wound forever seeking balm Than this gray calm! Is this pain's surcease? Bette...

Prefixed to the volume of which the group of six poems following this prelude constituted the first portion. I WOULD the gift I offer here Might graces from thy favor take, And, se...

Del Cascar, Del Cascar, Stood upon a flaming star, Stood, and let his feet hang down Till in China the toes turned brown. And he reached his fingers over The rim of the sea, like s...

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.--MATTHEW vii. 12. BEARER of Freedom's holy light, Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod, The foe of al...

The storming of the city of Derne, in 1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine Americans, forty Greeks, and a motley array of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats of hardihoo...

"PUT up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar, O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped W...

To dreamy languors and the violet mist Of early Spring, the deep sequestered vale Gives first her paling-blue Miamimist, Where blithely pours the cuckoo's annual tale Of Summer pro...

So oft our hearts, beloved lute, In blossomy haunts of song are mute; So long we pore, 'mid murmurings dull, O'er loveliness unutterable. So vain is all our passion strong! The dre...

Ah, how poets sing and die! Make one song and Heaven takes it; Have one heart and Beauty breaks it; Chatterton, Shelley, Keats and I-- Ah, how poets sing and die!

The garden is very quiet to-night, The dusk has gone with the Evening Star, And out on the bay a lone ship light Makes a silver pathway over the bar Where the sea sings low. I foll...

Dr. Charles Follen, a German patriot, who had come to America for the freedom which was denied him in his native land, allied himself with the abolitionists, and at a convention of...

_(In the Chapel)_ The appointed lot has come upon me, mother, The mournful ending of my years of strife, This changing world I leave, and to another In blood and terror goes my spi...

_On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation._ O brothers mine, to-day we stand Where half a century sweeps our ken, Since God, through Lincoln's re...

So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years; I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice And what month brings the shy forget-me-not; Forgotten is...