Negro Poets and Their Poems. Robert Thomas Kerlin
Gwinter hitch my oxes side by side,
An’ take my gal fer a big fine ride.
After a description of anticipated pleasures and a comic interlude in dialogue, the ballad from which these two couplets are taken concludes with that varied repetition of the first stanza which we find so effective in the poems of art:
I’d druther be a Nigger, an’ plow ole Beck,
Dan a white Hill Billy wid his long red neck.
Song or rhyme was, as ever, heart’s ease to the Negro in every trouble. Here are two rhymes that “pack up” and put away two common troubles:
She writ me a letter
As long as my eye.
An’ she say in dat letter:
“My Honey!—Good-by!”
Dem whitefolks say dat money talk.
If it talk lak dey tell,
Den ev’ry time it come to Sam,
It up an’ say: “Farewell!”
Going to the nursery—it was the one room of the log cabin, or the great out-of-doors—we find the old-time Negro’s head filled with a Mother Goose more enchanting than any printed and pictured one in the “great house” of the white child:
W’en de big owl whoops,
An’ de screech owl screeks,
An’ de win’ makes a howlin’ sound;
You liddle woolly heads
Had better kiver up,
Caze de “hants” is comin’ ’round.
A, B, C,
Doubled down D;
I’se so lazy you cain’t see me.
A, B, C,
Doubled down D;
Lazy Chilluns gits hick’ry tea.
****
Buck an’ Berry run a race,
Buck fall down an’ skin his face.
Buck an’ Berry in a stall;
Buck, he try to eat it all.
Buck, he e’t too much, you see.
So he died wid choleree.
But it is in the dance songs that rhythm in its perfection makes itself felt and that repetends are employed with effects which another Poe or Lanier might appropriate for supreme art. A lively scene and gay frolicsome movements are conjured up by the following dance songs:
CHICKEN IN THE BREAD TRAY
“Auntie, will yo’ dog bite?”—
“No, Chile! No!”
Chicken in de bread tray
A makin’ up dough.
“Auntie, will yo’ broom hit?”—
“Yes, Chile!” Pop!
Chicken in de bread tray;
“Flop! Flop! Flop!”
“Auntie, will yo’ oven bake?”—
“Yes. Jes fry!”—
“What’s dat chicken good fer?”—
“Pie! Pie! Pie!”
“Auntie, is yo’ pie good?”—
“Good as you could ’spec’.”
Chicken in de bread tray;
“Peck! Peck! Peck!”
Dancers
JUBA
Juba dis, an’ Juba dat,
Juba skin dat Yaller Cat. Juba! Juba!
Juba jump an’ Juba sing.
Juba cut dat Pigeon’s Wing. Juba! Juba!
Juba, kick off Juba’s shoe.
Juba, dance dat Jubal Jew. Juba! Juba!
Juba, whirl dat foot about.
Juba, blow dat candle out. Juba! Juba!
Juba circle, Raise de Latch.
Juba do dat Long Dog Scratch. Juba! Juba!
Out of the pastime group I take a rhyme that is typically full of character, delicious in its wit and proverbial lore:
FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES
You needn’ sen’ my gal hoss apples,
You needn’ sen’ her ’lasses candy;
She would keer fer de lak o’ you,
Ef you’d sen’ her apple brandy.
W’y don’t you git some common sense?
Jes git a liddle! Oh fer land sakes!
Quit yo’ foolin’, she hain’t studyin’ you!
Youse jes fattenin’ frogs fer snakes!
In the love songs one finds that mingling of pathos and humor so characteristic of the Negro. The one example I shall give lacks nothing of art—some unknown Dunbar, some black Bobbie Burns, must have composed it:
SHE HUGGED ME AND KISSED ME
I see’d her in de Springtime,
I see’d her in de Fall,
I see’d her in de Cotton patch,
A cameing from de Ball.
She hug me, an’ she kiss me,
She wrung my han’ an’ cried.
She said I wus de sweetes’ thing
Dat ever lived or died.
She hug me an’ she kiss me.
Oh Heaben! De touch o’ her han’!
She said I wus de puttiest thing
In de shape o’ mortal man.
I told her dat I love her,
Dat my love wus bed-cord strong;
Den I axed her w’en she’d have me,
An’ she jes say, “Go long!”
In a very striking way these folk-songs of the plantation suggest the old English folk-songs of unknown authorship and origin—the ancient traditional ballads, long despised and neglected, but ever living on and loved in the hearts of the people. This unstudied poetry of the people, the unlettered common folk, had supreme virtues, the elemental and universal virtues of simplicity, sincerity, veracity. It had the power, in an artificial age, to bring poetry back to reality, to genuine emotion, to effectiveness, to the common interests of mankind. Simple and crude as it was it had a merit unknown to the polished verse of the schools. Potential Negro poets might do well to ponder this fact of literary history. There is nothing more precious in English literature than this crude old poetry of the people.
There is a book of rhymes which, every Christmas season, is the favorite gift, the most gladly received, of all that Santa Claus brings. Nor so at Christmas only; it is a perennial pleasure, a boon to all children, young and old in years. This book is Mother Goose’s Melodies. How many “immortal” epics of learned poets it has outlived! How many dainty volumes of polished lyrics has this humble book of “rhymes” seen vanish to the dusty realms of dark oblivion! In every home it has a place and is cherished. Its contents are better known and more loved than the contents of any other book. Untutored, nameless poets, nature-inspired,