molly13+And+a+pain+still+throbs+in+the+old,+old+scars

When Paul Laurence Dunbar says, "And a pain still throbs in old, old scars" he is being both literal and figurative and literal. Literally, the poem is written about a bird who is trapped inside a cage who is beating its wings repeatedly against the inside bars of the cage trying to escape but never can. He gets scars from beating his wings and because he doesn't ever stop hitting the sides the scars always hurt. In a figurative way Paul Laurence is talking about himself in this poem and how he was always trying to do something but could never do it for some reason or because the people around him kept him in a sort of "cage." The "old, old scars" in this case are past events in him life and him being African-American some of those past events could even be represented by things that he wasn't alive for but just things that happened to his people, like slavery and racism. In both senses of the line it is saying that that pain from the scars will never stop because the reason the scars were gotten will never be forgotten and they will always fight for what they want and what they need.