Lyric Poem · Love
Life's Tragedy
1It may be misery not to sing at all,
2And to go silent through the brimming day;
3It may be misery never to be loved,
4But deeper griefs than these beset the way.
5To sing the perfect song,
6And by a half-tone lost the key,
7There the potent sorrow, there the grief,
8The pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Life's Tragedy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar — quilloak.com/poems/lifes-tragedy
Quick facts
- Poem
- Life's Tragedy
- Poet
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Love, Sad, Childhood
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · 4 quatrains
- Line length
- Lines run 8-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Paul Laurence Dunbar1872–1906
- Source record
- PoetryDBLife's Tragedy by paul-laurence-dunbar, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 d8e54a7140dfc571…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.