Martin Luther King Poems

The Dawn's awake! A flash of smoldering flame and fire Ignites the East. Then, higher, higher, O'er all the sky so gray, forlorn, The torch of gold is borne. The Dawn's awake! The...

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--...

HE had bowed down to drunkenness, An abject worshipper The pride of manhood's pulse had grown Too faint and cold to stir; And he had given his spirit up To the unblessed thrall, An...

IT chanced that while the pious troops of France Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached, What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands (The Hun and Aaron meet for such a Moses), St...

THROUGH heat and cold, and shower and sun, Still onward cheerly driving There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving. But see! the day is closing cool, The woods are...

Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate of the Freedman's Memorial statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington. The group, which stands in Park Squar...

FROM gold to gray Our mild sweet day Of Indian Summer fades too soon; But tenderly Above the sea Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon. In its pale fire, The village spire Shows...

Christ washed the feet of Judas! The dark and evil passions of his soul, His secret plot, and sordidness complete, His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole, And still in love...

HURRAH! the seaward breezes Sweep down the bay amain; Heave up, my lads, the anchor! Run up the sail again Leave to the lubber landsmen The rail-car and the steed; The stars of hea...

Written for the anniversary celebration of the first of August, at Milton, 7846. A FEW brief years have passed away Since Britain drove her million slaves Beneath the tropic's fier...

Written on reading pamphlets published by clergymen against the abolition of the gallows. THE suns of eighteen centuries have shone Since the Redeemer walked with man, and made The...

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes Blown by black players upon a picni...

OF all that Orient lands can vaunt Of marvels with our own competing, The strangest is the Haschish plant, And what will follow on its eating. What pictures to the taster rise, Of...

Pray why are you so bare, so bare, Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw, Runs a shudder over me? My leaves were green as the best, I trow,...

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn, As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on, Afar o'er life's turrets and vales does it roam In the wake of those echoes the heart...

Sewanee Hills of dear delight, Prompting my dreams that used to be, I know you are waiting me still to-night By the Unika Range of Tennessee. The blinking stars in endless space, T...

IN the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame, So terrible alive, Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became The wandering wild bees' hive; And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore Tho...

Some leading sectarian papers had lately published the letter of a clergyman, giving an account of his attendance upon a criminal (who had committed murder during a fit of intoxica...

These lines were written when the orators of the American Colonization Society were demanding that the free blacks should be sent to Africa, and opposing Emancipation unless expatr...

IT was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again; The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands...

A number of students of Fisk University, under the direction of one of the officers, gave a series of concerts in the Northern States, for the purpose of establishing the college o...

This poem and the three following were called out by the popular movement of Free State men to occupy the territory of Kansas, and by the use of the great democratic weapon--an ove...

Written on hearing of the death of Silas Wright of New York. As they who, tossing midst the storm at night, While turning shoreward, where a beacon shone, Meet the walled blackness...

WILDLY round our woodland quarters Sad-voiced Autumn grieves; Thickly down these swelling waters Float his fallen leaves. Through the tall and naked timber, Column-like and old, Gl...

His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven. His father, by the crudest way of pain, Had bidden him to his bosom once again; The awful sin remained still unforgiven. All night a br...

A STRONG and mighty Angel, Calm, terrible, and bright, The cross in blended red and blue Upon his mantle white. Two captives by him kneeling, Each on his broken chain, Sang praise...

"WELL speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast! Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art, If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving heart, Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past, By the...

WHEN Freedom, on her natal day, Within her war-rocked cradle lay, An iron race around her stood, Baptized her infant brow in blood; And, through the storm which round her swept, Th...

O'er all my song the image of a face Lieth, like shadow on the wild sweet flowers. The dream, the ecstasy that prompts my powers; The golden lyre's delights bring little grace To b...