Back when death was cheap and disease was rife, a young man wrote a poem about persistence that still rings through our language today.
Like all the best poetry, it’s simple and yet it sings with wisdom.
The wisdom comes from countless generations of people who had no choice but to “keep a-pluggin’ away” when there was little hope. When the only success and the only certainty of respite came from a clean death.
When the clouds have rolled away,
There will come a brighter day
All your labor to repay,
Keep a-plugging away.
Paul Laurence Dunbar published a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, four novels, lyrics for a musical, and a play before he died of tuberculosis aged 33.