Laurence Paul Dunbar

The Haunted Oak

The Haunted Oak
Pray why are you so bare, so bare,
Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
And sap ran free in my veins,
But I saw in the moonlight dim and weird
A guiltless victim's pains.

I bent me down to hear his sigh;
I shook with his gurgling moan,
And I trembled sore when they rode away,
And left him here alone.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime,
And set him fast in jail:
Oh, why does the dog howl all night long,
And why does the night wind wail?

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath,
And he raised his hand to the sky;
But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear,
And the steady tread drew nigh.

Who is it rides by night, by night,
Over the moonlit road?
And what is the spur that keeps the pace,
What is the galling goad?

And now they beat at the prison door,
"Ho, keeper, do not stay!
We are friends of him whom you hold within,
And we fain would take him away

"From those who ride fast on our heels
With mind to do him wrong;
They have no care for his innocence,
And the rope they bear is long."

They have fooled the jailer with lying words,
They have fooled the man with lies;
The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,
And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail,
And hard and fast they ride,
And the leader laughs low down in his throat,
As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,
And the doctor one of white,
And the minister, with his oldest son,
Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?
'Tis but a little space,
And the time will come when these shall dread
The mem'ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark,
And the weight of him in my grain,
I feel in the throe of his final woe
The touch of my own last pain.

And never more shall leaves come forth
On the bough that bears the ban;
I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,
From the curse of a guiltless man.

And ever the judge rides by, rides by,
And goes to hunt the deer,
And ever another rides his soul
In the guise of a mortal fear.

And ever the man he rides me hard,
And never a night stays he;
For I feel his curse as a haunted bough,
On the trunk of a haunted tree.

In “The Haunted Oak,” Dunbar gives the aspiration to the oak and allows it to speak. In the oak’s voice, it attacks lynching which the author wants to say. He uses the personification device wisely in order to say what he does not want to speak out directly. In addition, the Negro background of Dunbar contain in throughout the poem. In “The Haunted Oak,” the oak “tells” us the story which Dunbar heard from an old Negro of Howard Town told him that his nephew had been falsely accused of rape, “the old, old crime” (13), and sentenced to death by hanging on the oak. This is an iambic tetrameter poems in which Dunbar narrates through oak voice how the innocent man was arrested and judged. Personification strategy is used throughout the poems to turn the inanimate oaks to a person such as “pray” (1), “runs a shudder” (4), “trow” (5), “bent” (9) and so on. In addition, Dunbar repeats the phrase at the end of the first lines in the first, fourth, sixth, and fourteenth, such as “so bare, so bare” (1), “the old, old crime” (13), “by night, by night” (21), and “rides by, rides by” (61) to create rhyme and rhythm. Also, by assonance, such as he repeats long vowel sound i at the end of the sentences such as “tree” (2), “me” (4), “sigh” (9), “crime” (13) and so on to create the rhyme and rhythm. In this poem, the innocent Negro had been judged unfairly which was an popular treatment with the Black at that time. He was stated guilty, imprisoned, and hanged, and the committee judged him was contain high educated people such as “doctor” (42) and “minister” (43). By Paul Dunbar vivid and strong verb, he makes the oak brings us back to the time when the Negro was hanging on the oak and lets us feels the guiltless Negro’s pain:
I feel the rope against my bark,
And the weight of him in my grain,
I feel in the throe of his final woe
The touch of my own last pain.
Although it is a no feeling thing, the oak pitied and felt his pain, but the others people was not even they are well educated because they judged him by his skin color not his soul inside. After the Negro’s death the branch, on which the Negro was hung, withered instantly because it was haunted. Also, although the people who sentenced and executed him showed nothing, but inside their souls were also “haunted.”

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