"When de cabbage pot is steamin'
An' de bacon good an' fat,
When de chittlins is a-spuller'n'
So's to show you whah dey's at;
Tek away yo' sody biscut,
Tek away yo' cake an' pie,
Fu' de glory time is comin',
An' it's 'proachin' mighty nigh,
An' yo' want to jump an' hollah,
Dough you know you'd bettah not
When yo' mammy says de blessin',
An' de co'n pone's hot.
"I have hyeahd o' lots o' sermons,
An' I've hyeahd o' lots o' prayers,
An' I've listened to some singin'
Dat has tuck me up de stairs
Of de Glory-lan' an' set me
Jes' below de mahstah's th'one,
An' lef' my hea't a-singin'
In a happy aftah tone;
But dem wu'ds so sweetly murmured
Seemed to tech de softes' spot,
When my mammy says de blessin',
An' de co'n pone's hot."
This is not so great a poem as the "Cotter's Saturday Night" by Burns, because the spiritual element and the whole scope of the tenderest concerns of the family and of life in that poem are left out of this. But in Dunbar's poem, where only the festival is pictured, the scene is so intensified that one feels the warmth and sees the glow of the evening fire and inhales the appetizing odors of the coming homely cheer, and can see back of these the tender care and ineffable love of the "Mammy," who puts the crowning touch upon her love with the blessing. As far as it goes, "When the co'n pone's hot" is great precisely in the same lines that the "Cotter's Saturday Night" is great.
Mr. Dunbar has also written a number of novels and short stories. It has not been my good fortune to see "The Stories from Dixie;" but the novels I have bought and read. If there were no Charles Chestnut, Mr. Dunbar's novels would have to be discussed in this connection, and he would have to be put down as the very first Negro novel writer, mainly, however, because there would be no other; but with Mr. Chestnut in the field, no true admirer of Mr. Dunbar will ever discuss the prolific diffusions of his, bearing the name novels, in any connection with Dunbar, the poet. There is only enough space left in this article for the poets, to barely mention the names of Mr. Daniel Webster Davis, of Manchester, Virginia, and Mr. James D. Corrothers of Red Bank, New Jersey, and to give a selection from each and let their poems speak for them as writers. Both of them have received notice in the best magazines and favorable criticism elsewhere. Both owe their distinction mainly to their work in dialectic verse which, I fear, is too much like the "ragtime" music, considered quite the proper dressing for Negro distinction in the poetic art.
Here is to "De Biggis' Piece ub Pie," by Mr. Davis:
"When I was a little boy
I set me down to cry,
Bekase my little brudder
Had de biggis' piece ub pie.
But when I had become a man
I made my min' to try
An' hustle roun' to git myself
De biggis' piece ub pie.
"An' like in bygone chil'ish days,
De worl' is hustlin' roun'
To git darselbes de biggis' slice
Ub honor an' renown;
An' ef I fails to do my bes',
But stan' aroun' an' cry,
Dis ol' worl' will git away
Wid bof de plate an' pie.
"An' eben should I git a slice
I mus' not cease to try,
But keep a-movin' fas' es life
To hol' my piece ub pie.
Dis ruff ol' worl' has little use
Fur dem dat chance to fall,
An' while youze gittin' up ag'in
'Twill take de plate an' all."
The one more selection from Mr. Davis will show him as a poet outside of dialect:
A ROSE.