Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—”
- Source
- Sympathy
- Date
- 1899
Meaning of “I know why the caged bird sings, ah…”
Dunbar links the caged bird’s song to injury and frustrated freedom, making the voice a plea born from confinement rather than uncomplicated joy.
Where does it come from?
“Sympathy,” published in Lyrics of the Hearthside (1899) and represented by Poetry Foundation. The caged-bird image became one of Dunbar’s most influential metaphors for constrained freedom and suffering; the record keeps the poem’s figurative language rather than assigning one exhaustive historical interpretation.