A Dream Deferred
Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
I, too, Sing America
Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Shel Silverstein
There is a place where the sidewalk
ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and
white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his
flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke
blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers
grow
We shall walk with a walk that is
measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows
go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is
measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white
arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the
children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
To My Wife - With A Copy Of My
Poems Oscar Wilde
I can write no stately poem
As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.
For if of these fallen petals
One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.
And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.
