{"id":698,"date":"2010-10-14T00:12:21","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T00:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=698"},"modified":"2017-07-11T05:40:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T05:40:47","slug":"the-haunted-oak-by-paul-laurence-dunbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/the-haunted-oak-by-paul-laurence-dunbar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Haunted Oak by Paul Laurence Dunbar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

THE HAUNTED OAK by
\nPaul Laurence Dunbar<\/p>\n

Pray why are you so bare, so bare,
\nOh, bough of the old oak-tree;
\nAnd why, when I go through the shade you throw,
\nRuns a shudder over me?<\/p>\n

My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
\nAnd sap ran free in my veins,
\nBut I saw in the moonlight dim and weird
\nA guiltless victim’s pains.<\/p>\n

I bent me down to hear his sigh;
\nI shook with his gurgling moan,
\nAnd I trembled sore when they rode away,
\nAnd left him here alone.<\/p>\n

They’d charged him with the old, old crime,
\nAnd set him fast in jail:
\nOh, why does the dog howl all night long,
\nAnd why does the night wind wail?<\/p>\n

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath,
\nAnd he raised his hand to the sky;
\nBut the beat of hoofs smote on his ear,
\nAnd the steady tread drew nigh.<\/p>\n

Who is it rides by night, by night,
\nOver the moonlit road?
\nAnd what is the spur that keeps the pace,
\nWhat is the galling goad?<\/p>\n

And now they beat at the prison door,
\n“Ho, keeper, do not stay!
\nWe are friends of him whom you hold within,
\nAnd we fain would take him away<\/p>\n

“From those who ride fast on our heels
\nWith mind to do him wrong;
\nThey have no care for his innocence,<\/p>\n

And the rope they bear is long.”
\nThey have fooled the jailer with lying words,
\nThey have fooled the man with lies;
\nThe bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,<\/p>\n

And the great door open flies.
\nNow they have taken him from the jail,
\nAnd hard and fast they ride,
\nAnd the leader laughs low down in his throat,<\/p>\n

As they halt my trunk beside.
\nOh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,
\nAnd the doctor one of white,
\nAnd the minister, with his oldest son,
\nWas curiously bedight.<\/p>\n

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?
\n‘Tis but a little space,
\nAnd the time will come when these shall dread
\nThe mem’ry of your face.<\/p>\n

I feel the rope against my bark,
\nAnd the weight of him in my grain,
\nI feel in the throe of his final woe
\nThe touch of my own last pain.<\/p>\n

And never more shall leaves come forth
\nOn a bough that bears the ban;
\nI am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,
\nFrom the curse of a guiltless man.<\/p>\n

And ever the judge rides by, rides by,
\nAnd goes to hunt the deer,
\nAnd ever another rides his soul
\nIn the guise of a mortal fear.<\/p>\n

And ever the man he rides me hard,
\nAnd never a night stays he;
\nFor I feel his curse as a haunted bough,
\nOn the trunk of a haunted tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE HAUNTED OAK by Paul Laurence Dunbar 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? My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I saw…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,418],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1800s","category-halloween-poems"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}