Neber min’ your manhood’s risin’
So you habe a way to stay it.
Neber min’ folks’ good opinion
So you have a way to slay it.
Neber min’ man’s why an’ wharfo’
So de worl’ is big an’ roun.
Neber min’ whar next you’s gwine to
So you’s six foot under groun’.
Raymond Garfield Dandridge in The Poet and Other Poems has included a handful of dialect pieces which prove him a master of this species of composition. I will select but one to represent this class of his work here:
DE INNAH PART
I ’fess Ise ugly, big, an’ ruff,
Mah voice is husky, mannah’s gruff;
But, mah gal sed, “Neb mine yore hide,
I jedged you by yore inside side”;
An’ sed, dat she hab alwuz foun’,
De gole beneaf de surfuss groun’.
She claims dat offen rail ruff hides
Am boun’ erroun’ hi’ grade insides;
W’ile sum dat ’pear “sharp ez a tack”
Kinceals a heart dat’s hard an’ black;
An’, to prove her way ob thinkin’,
Gibs fo’ zample Abeham Linkin.
Ole “Hones’ Abe,” so lank an’ tall,
Worn’t no parlah posin’ doll:
Yet he stood out miles erbove
Uddah men, in truf an’ love.
An’ in han’lin’ ’fairs of state,
Proved de greates’ ob de great.
In makin’ great men, Nature mus’
Fo’ got erbout de beauty dus’
An’ fashun dem frum nachel clay,
De gritty kine, dat doan decay.
But, mos’ her time she spent, I know,
Erpon de parts dat duzen show.
Two poems by Sterling M. Means, one in standard English and one in dialect may well be placed here side by side for comparison as being identical in theme and feeling, and differing but in manner. They are taken from his book entitled The Deserted Cabin and Other Poems:
THE OLD PLANTATION GRAVE