Excerpt from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar: With the Introduction to Lyrics of Lowly Life I think' I should scarcely trouble the reader with a Special appeal in behalf Of this book, if it had not specially appealed to me for reasons apart from the author's race, origin, and condition. The world is too Old now, and I find myself too much Of its mood, to care for the work of a poet because he is black, because his father and mother were slaves, because he was, before and after he began to write poems, an elevator-boy. These facts would certainly attract me to him as a man, if I knew him to have a literary ambition, but when it came to his literary art, I must judge it irrespective Of these facts, and enjoy or endure it for what it was in itself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.