I know why the caged bird sings

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 – 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His first book of poems, Oak and Ivy, included what would become one of his most well-known works, “Sympathy,” in which he expresses, in a somber tone, the plight of Black people in American society. The third stanza reads as follows:

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

This short choral setting by Steven Paxton will eventually become the concluding part of a three-movement setting of the entire poem, but stands alone as a moving choral elegy.