Poem

1896 –

1972

Ah, I know what happiness is. . . .
It is a timid little fawn
Creeping softly up to me
For one caress, then gone
Before I’m through with it . . .
Away, like dark from dawn!
Well I know what happiness is . . . !
It is the break of day that wears
A shining dew decked diadem . . .
An aftermath of tears.
Fawn and dawn, emblems of joy . . .
I’ve played with them for years,
And always they will slip away
Into the brush of another day.

From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.

Blanche Taylor Dickinson was a poet, short story writer, and journalist associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Dickinson was born to Laura and Thomas Taylor on a farm near Franklin, Kentucky, on April 15, 1896. She received her education in various public schools before enrolling at Bowling Green Academy. She then attended Simmons College of Kentucky (then Simmons University) in Louisville, a private, historically-Black college, but earned no degree.

About Blanche Taylor Dickinson

Occasion

Themes

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To an Icicle

Chilled into a serenity
As rigid as your pose
You linger trustingly,
But a gutter waits for you.
Your elegance does not secure
You favors with the sun.
He is not one to pity fragileness.
He thinks all cheeks should burn
And feel how tears can run.

Blanche Taylor Dickinson

1927

That Hill

It crawled away from ’neath my feet
And left me standing there;
A little at a time, went up
An atmospheric stair.

I couldn’t go for watching it,
To see where it would stop;
A tree sprang out and waved to me
When it had reached the top.

Blanche Taylor Dickinson

1927

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Four Walls

To an Icicle

That Hill

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Four Walls

To an Icicle

That Hill

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