A NIGGER AND A MULE
I’ve lived in the city, I’ve sailed the wide sea;
I’ve studied in many and many a school;
I’ve sat at the feet of the bond and free,
And a lot has come to a fellow like me,
Since a new ground I plowed with a balky mule,
But I’ve lived to see balky and a nigger fool.
No deep-seated scorn of the African fool—
There’s plenty like him from the hills to the sea;
’Tis the union of nigger and a stubborn mule,
That surpasses the sport of an all-round school,
If not for professor for fun-loving me,
And as long as I’m playful, my play shall be free.
Aye friend, ’tis a wonderful thing to be free,
Though many a free man I’d call a fool,
And no doubt some of them would thus entitle me,
Though tutored in the city, the college and the sea
Yet the nigger and hybrid, I’d take for a school;
For ’tis hard to beat a pure nigger and a mule.
But a “coon” in new ground, with a kicking mule!
Just so I am far from his heels and am free
To look, and to listen like a pupil in school;
Though frankly I admit, I at times played the fool,
Till the lessons of life had widened my sea,
And harder experience had deepened me.
Ye fates, do not bring the worst unto me,
That of trying to handle a nondescript mule,
In a rooty new ground—O the depths of the sea
I’d choose, in the hope with the fish to be free;
However, such choosing would prove me a fool—
No applicant I for a sea-bottom school.
Since I’ve come to think, ’twas a German-tried school;
And a submarine ship was never for me;
And the proudest old Hun thus out-reached the fool.
But behold, you elect, a nigger and a mule,
In new ground in August—thank God I am free!
I’m only a witness on a smoother sea.
God bless his wide sea, and the nigger in school;
And all men make free—’twould be heaven for me—
And God bless the poor mule, and the mule-headed fool.
By L. Gregg