Her thoughts are pure and every one
But makes her good to look upon.
Daughter of God! you are divine,
O, Ebon Maid and Girl of Mine!
Lucian B. Watkins.
I will conclude this section with a very well rhymed tribute to two Negro bards between whom there was a friendship and a correspondence similar to that which existed between Burns and Lapraik. The writer, James Edgar French, was a native of Kentucky, studied for the ministry, and died early:
DUNBAR AND COTTER
Dunbar and Cotter! foster-brothers, ye,
Nurst at the breast of heav’nly minstrelsy!
The first two Negroes who have dared to climb
Parnassus’ mount, and carve your names in rhyme;
Who, over icy walls of prejudice,
Where twice ten thousand gorgon monsters hiss,
Did scale the peak and make the steep ascent;
For which great feat ye had small precedent.
There were who said: “The Negro is not fit
To write good prose, much less to rhyme with wit”;
That nothing ever Negroes could inspire
With Spenser’s fancy or with Shakespere’s fire:
With Dryden’s vigor, with the ease of Pope,
To weave the iambic pentametric rope,
But ye, immortal sons of Afric, ye
Have proved these charges gross absurdity;
That old Dame Nature’s no respecter in
Regard to person or the hue of skin.
Omnific God, at whose fiatic hand
Did primogenial light deluge the land;
Whose word supreme did out of chaos draw
A world, and order made its guiding law,
Bequeath’d like talents to the black and white;
To read form’d some and others made to write;
To govern these, and those to governed be,
And you, great twain, endued with poesy!
James Edgar French.
II. Commemorative and Occasional
From this body of Negro verse which I have been describing and giving specimens of may be selected pieces commemorative of days and seasons that are quite up to the standard of similar pieces provided for white children in their school-readers. These selections will further illustrate the variety of themes and emotional responses in this body of contemporary verse.
The first selection hardly needs any allowance to be made for it, I think, on the score that it was written by a girl only sixteen years of age:
CHRISTMAS CHEER
’Tis Christmas time! ’Tis Christmas time!
Dear hallowed name of every clime!
How each one’s heart now happy feels,
How each one’s face fresh joy reveals
As Christmas Day is drawing near
The merriest day of all the year!
Old spite and hate, the scowl, the sneer
Are vanquished, all, by kindly cheer,
And friendships nigh forgot and cold
Glow warm again as once of old.
Man’s worries cease, his hope returns,
His breast with love now brighter burns;
So, Christmas cheer! Oh, Christmas cheer!
A hearty welcome to you here.