Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/245

Rh And the fields are waste and barren, Where the sugar cane did grow, Where they tilled the corn and cotton, In the years of long ago; And along the piney hillside, Where the hound pursued the slave, In the dreary years of bondage, There he fills an humble grave.

Dis ole deserted cabin Remin’s me ob de past; An’ when I gits ter t’inkin’, De tears comes t’ick an’ fast. I wunner whur’s A’nt Doshy, I wunner whur’s Brur Jim; I hyeahs no corn-songs ringin’, I hyeahs no Gospel hymn. Dis ole deserted cabin Am tumblin’ in decay; An’ all its ole-time dwellers Hab gone de silent way. Dey voices hushed in silence, De cabin drear an’ lone; An’ dey who used ter lib hyeah Long sense is dead an’ gone.

J. Mord Allen’s poems and tales in dialect are worthy of distinction. They are executed in