Paul Laurence Dunbar and the African American Elegy.

 
   A hush is over all the teeming lists, 
   And there is pause, a breathspace in the strife; 
 
   A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists 
   And vapors that obscure the sun of life. 
 
   And Ethiopia, with bosom torn, 
   Laments the passing of her noblest born.--Paul Laurence Dunbar, 
   "Frederick Douglass" 11. 1-6) 

Quietly, this stanza begins Paul Laurence Dunbar's long elegy for Frederick Douglass. Here, Dunbar's speaker solemnly utters sentiments that suggest Douglass's importance within the context of an American narrative of race. As well he prophesies a kind of racial deliverance toward which Douglass's political activities had moved the black race, ...