[From The Louisville Times]
Through a little lane at sundown in the days that used to be,
When the summer-time and roses lit the land,
My sweetheart would come singing down that leafy way to me
With her dainty pink sunbonnet in her hand.
Oh, I threw my arms about her as we met beside the way,
And her darling, curly head lay on my breast,
While she told me that she loved me in her simple, girlish way,
And then kisses that she gave me told the rest;
For a kiss is all the language that you wish from your sweetheart,
When you meet her in the gloaming there, so lonely and apart,
And she set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me
In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
Through a little lane at sundown we went walking hand in hand,
'Mid the summer-time and roses long ago,
And the path that we were treading seemed to lead to fairyland,
The place where happy lovers long to go;
Oh, we talked about our marriage in the quiet, evening hush,
And I bent to whisper love words in her ear,
And her dainty pink sunbonnet was no pinker than her blush
For she thought the birds and flowers all might hear;
Oh, that dainty pink sunbonnet, bright in memory still it glows,
It hid her smiles and blushes as the young leaves veil the rose,
When she set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me,
In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
Through a little lane at sundown I go roaming all forlorn,
Though the summer-time once more smiles o'er the land,
And the roses seem to ask me where their sister rose has gone
With her dainty pink sunbonnet in her hand.
But false friends came between us and I found out to my cost,
When I learned too late her sweetness and her truth,
That the love we hold the dearest is the love that we have lost,
With the roses and the fairyland of youth.
Now the flowers all bend above her through the long, bright summer day,
And my heart grows homesick for her as she dreams the hours away,
She who set my life to music and made heaven on earth for me
In that little lane at sundown in the days that used to be.
[JOSEPH S. COTTER]
Joseph Seaman Cotter, Kentucky's only negro writer of real creative ability, was born near Bardstown, Kentucky, February 2, 1861. From his hard day-labor, he went to night school in Louisville, and he has educated himself so successfully that he is at the present time principal of the Tenth Ward colored school, Louisville. Cotter has published three volumes of verse, the first of which was Links of Friendship (Louisville, 1898), a book of short lyrics. This was followed by a four-act verse drama, entitled Caleb, the Degenerate (Louisville, 1903). His latest book of verse is A White Song and a Black One (Louisville, 1909). Cotter's response to Paul Lawrence Dunbar's After a Visit to Kentucky, was exceedingly well done, but his Negro Love Song is the cleverest thing he has written hitherto. His work has been praised by Alfred Austin, Israel Zangwill, Madison Cawein, Charles J. O'Malley, and other excellent judges of poetry. Cotter is a great credit to his race, and he has won, by his quiet, unassuming life and literary labors, the respect of many of Louisville's most prominent citizens. One of his admirers has ranked his work above Dunbar's, but this rating is much too high for any thing he has done so far. In the last year or two he has turned his attention to the short-story, and his first collection of them has just appeared, entitled Negro Tales (New York, 1912).
Bibliography. Lexington Leader (November 14, 1909); Lore of the Meadowland, by J. W. Townsend (Lexington, Kentucky, 1911).
NEGRO LOVE SONG[26]
[From A White Song and a Black One (Louisville, Kentucky, 1909)]