The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar/Worn Out

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

WORN OUT

You bid me hold my peace
  And dry my fruitless tears,
Forgetting that I bear
  A pain beyond my years.

You say that I should smile
  And drive the gloom away;
I would, but sun and smiles
  Have left my life's dark day.

All time seems cold and void,
  And naught but tears remain;
Life's music beats for me
  A melancholy strain.

I used at first to hope,
  But hope is past and, gone;
And now without a ray
  My cheerless life drags on.

Like to an ash-stained hearth
  When all its fires are spent;
Like to an autumn wood
  By storm winds rudely shent,—

So sadly goes my heart,
  Unclothed of hope and peace;
It asks not joy again,
  But only seeks release.