hat the hostilities and the prejudices which
had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts;
that these were to be the final proof that God had made of one blood
all nations of men. I thought his merits positive and not comparative;
and I held that if his black poems had been written by a white man
I should not have found them less admirable. I accepted them as an
evidence of the essential unity of the human race, which does not
think or feel black in one and white in another, but humanly in all."

The Bookman says of Mr. Dunbar:

"It is safe to assert that accepted as an Anglo-Saxon poet, he would
have received little or no consideration in a hurried weighing of the
mass of contemporary verse."

"But Mr. Dunbar, as his pleasing, manly, and not unrefined face shows,
is a poet of the African race; and this novel and suggestive fact at
once placed his work upon a peculiar footing of interest, of study,
and of appreciative welcome. So regarded, it is a most remarkable and
hopeful production."

[Illustration: PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR, THE NEGRO POET.]

We reproduce here one of Dunbar's dialect poems entitled
WHEN DE CO'N PONE'S HOT.

Dey is times in life when Nature
Seems to slip a cog an' go
Jes' a-rattlin' down creation,
Lak an ocean's overflow;
When de worl' jes' stahts a-spinnin'
Lak a picaninny's top,
An' you' cup o' joy is brimmin'
'Twel it seems about to slop.
An' you feel jes' lak a racah
Dat is trainin' fu' to trot--
When you' mammy ses de blessin'
An' de co'n pone's hot.

When you set down at de table,
Kin' o' weary lak an' sad,
'An' you'se jest a little tiahed,
An' purhaps a little mad--
How you' gloom tu'ns into gladness,
How you' joy drives out de doubt
When de oven do' is opened
An' de smell comes po'in' out;
Why, de 'lectric light o' Heaven
Seems to settle on de spot,
When yo' mammy ses de blessin'
An' de co'n pone's hot.

When de cabbage pot is steamin'
An' de bacon good an' fat,
When de chittlin's is a-sputter'n'
So's to show yo' whah dey's at;
Take away you sody biscuit,
Take away yo' cake an' pie.
Fu' de glory time is comin',
An' it's proachin' very nigh,
An' you' want to jump an' hollah,
Do you know you'd bettah not,
When you mammy ses de blessin'
An' de co'n pone's hot?

I have heerd o' lots o' sermons,
An' I've heerd o' lots o' prayers;
An'