Poem of the week: The Haunted Oak by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Poem of the week: The Haunted Oak by Paul Laurence Dunbar

A horrifying story of racial violence told from the point of view of an oak tree bough is all the more disturbing for its imitation of the ballad form

The Haunted Oak

Pray why are you so bare, so bare,
Oh, bough of the old oak tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?

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