Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/172

162 enhance the sentiment and make the humor more pointed. The songs of Moore and Burns represent the Irish and Scotch, and perhaps Foster will best represent negro minstrelsy as it has taken its prominent position in this country. Since the war, however, we have had genuine negro songs, taken down from the lips of freedmen. They exhibit a reckless and spasmodic use of language; but are very plaintive, and devotional. Here is a weary, and yet hopeful chant that is often sung at Port Royal;

And here is one with a beautiful and prayerful burden:

Yet it must be said that there are some of those plaintive songs that are supposed to belong peculiarly to burnt-cork minstrelsy, which possess a charm that compensates for much of their nonsense. That list of bright maidens of which they tell, whose dirges are sung in beautiful tunes, should be, every one of them, an inspiration to a kind and mournful thought. Who is not better for hearing "Poor Lost Lillie Dale," "Darling Nellie Gray," "Dear Evelina, Sweet Evelina," "Carrie Lee," "Dear Annie of the Vale," "Katy Darling," and poor absurd "Rosa Lee"?