Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow (1905) is a collection of poems by
African American author Paul Laurence Dunbar. Published while
Dunbar was suffering from tuberculosis, alcoholism, and depression,
Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow builds on his reputation as an artist
with a powerful vision of faith and perseverance who sought to
capture and examine the diversity of the African American
experience. In "The Place Where the Rainbow Ends," Dunbar, perhaps
reflecting on his proximity to death, provides a simple song with a
cautionary, utopian vision of hope and happiness: "Oh, many have
sought it, / And all would have bought it, / With the blood we so
recklessly spend; / But none has uncovered, / The gold, nor
discovered / The spot at the rainbow's end." Meditative and
bittersweet, Dunbar rejects wealth and power as a means of
achieving fulfillment, looking instead to establish an inner peace
for himself that he might "find without motion, / The place where
the rainbow ends," a place "[w]here care shall be quiet, / And love
shall run riot, / And [he] shall find wealth in [his] friends."
Whether a vision of heaven or of the possibility of peace on earth,
this poem finds echoes across Dunbar's penultimate volume. Nearing
death at such a young age, he prepares himself to lose the life he
had fought so hard to achieve, a life devoted to reaching the
hearts and minds of others. As we all must, he ends on a question,
opening himself to the unknown without losing hope for the
possibility of peace and reunion to come: "Where shall we meet, who
knows, who knows?" In the reader, his song carries on. With a
beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Paul Laurence Dunbar's Lyrics of Sunshine and
Shadow is a classic of African American literature reimagined for
modern readers.
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