Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/39

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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:

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:

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.