If I Had Known by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 2, 2017   If I Had Known   Alice Dunbar-Nelson

If I had known Two years ago how drear this life should be, And crowd upon itself all-strangely 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.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   "If I Had Known" was published in Violets and Other Tales (The Monthly Review, 1895).   Alice Dunbar-Nelson was born on July 19, 1875, in New Orleans, Louisiana. A civil rights activist as well as a poet, she authored many poetry collections, including Violets and Other Tales (The Monthly Review, 1895) and The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899). She died in 1935.   Poetry by Dunbar-Nelson   The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Volume 1 (Oxford University Press, 1994) "In drear nighted December" by John Keats "Spellbound" by Emily Brontë "Gladdening" by Jessie Haas Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038