My little one of ebon hue,
My little one with fluffy hair,
Go train your head and hands to do,
Your head and heart to dare.
THE MOTHER
The mother soothes her mantled child
With plaintive melody, and wild;
A deep compassion brims her eye
And stills upon her lips the sigh.
Her thoughts are leaping down the years,
0’er branding bars, through seething tears:
Her heart is sandaling his feet
Adown the world’s corroding street.
Then, with a start, she dons a smile,
His tender yearnings to beguile;
And only God will ever know
The wordless measure of her woe.
The foregoing poems are generic in character, the following, specific. And yet there is much in these also that is typical and universal:
TO A NEGRO MOTHER
I hear you croon a little lullaby,
I see you press his little lips to yours,
Again old scenes come to my memory,
As if Love’s stream had gained the long lost shores;
