Invitation to Love by Paul Laurence Dunbar

February 14, 2015   Invitation to Love   Paul Laurence Dunbar

Come when the nights are bright with stars Or come when the moon is mellow; Come when the sun his golden bars Drops on the hay-field yellow. Come in the twilight soft and gray, Come in the night or come in the day, Come, O love, whene’er you may, And you are welcome, welcome. You are sweet, O Love, dear Love, You are soft as the nesting dove. Come to my heart and bring it to rest As the bird flies home to its welcome nest. Come when my heart is full of grief Or when my heart is merry; Come with the falling of the leaf Or with the redd’ning cherry. Come when the year’s first blossom blows, Come when the summer gleams and glows, Come with the winter’s drifting snows, And you are welcome, welcome.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Invitation to Love” was published in Dunbar’s bookMajors and Minors (Hadley & Hadley, 1896).   Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African American poets to gain national recognition, was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872. He published ten collections of poetry, and many short stories and novels, before his death in 1906. Poetry by Dunbar   Selected Poems (Dover Publications, 1997) "Answer to a Child’s Question" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge "How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond" by E. E. Cummings Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.