Poem by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

If I Had Known

  If I had known
  Two years ago how drear this life should be,
  And crowd upon itself allstrangely sad,
  Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
  Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
  Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
  Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
                    If I had known.

  If I had known,
  Two years ago the impotence of love,
  The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
  Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
  Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
  But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
  And there to master all the world of mind,
                    If I had known.

1. Love and the Butterfly
2. Paul to Virginia
3. Amid the Roses
4. To the Negro Farmers of the United States
5. New Year's Day

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