THE LEARNED NEGRO There was a negro preacher, I have heard, In Southern parts before rebellion stirred, Who did not spend his strength in empty sound; His was a mind deep-reaching and profound. Others might beat the air, and make a noise, And help to amuse the silly girls and boys; But as for him he was a man of thought, Deep in theology, although untaught. He could not read or write, but he was wise, And knew right smart how to extemporise. One Sunday morn, when hymns and prayers were said, The preacher rose, and rubbing up his head, "Bredren and sisterin, and companions dear, Our preachment to-day, as you shall hear, Will be ob de creation,-ob de plan man. When God made Adam, in de ancient day, He made his body out ob earth and clay, He shape him all out right, den by and by, He set him up agin de fence to dry." "Stop," said a voice; and straightway there uprose, An ancient negro in his master's clothes. "Tell me," said he, "before you farder go, One little thing which I should like to know. It does not quite get through dis niggar's har, How came dat fence so nice and handy dar?" Like one who in the mud is tightly stuck, Or one non plussed, astonished, thunderstruck, The preacher looked severely on the pews, And rubbed his hair to know what words to use: "Bredren," said he, "dis word I hab to say; De preacher can't be bothered in dis way; For, if he is, it's jest as like as not, Our whole theology will be upsot." Cun'n' li'l yarn. GOING WITH THE STREAM I sit and sketch, as there we float, The stream is strong, and as I sit Still as we go, the things I see, The very apotheosis of dolce far niente, if you know what I mean. TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL "Speak, O man less recent! Fragmentary fossil! Primal pioneer of pliocene formation, Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum Of volcanic tufa! "Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium; Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami; Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions Of earth's epidermis! "Eo-Mio-Plio-Whatsoe'er the 'cene' was That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonderWhether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches Tell us thy strange story! "Or has the professor slightly antedated By some thousand years thy advent on this planet, Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted For cold-blooded creatures? "Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest When above thy head the stately Sigillaria Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant Carboniferous epoch? "Tell us of that scene-the dim and watery woodland Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect; Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club-mosses, Lycopodiacea, "When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus, And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus, While from time to time above thee flew and circled Cheerful Pterodactyls. "Tell us of thy food-those half-marine refections, Crinoids on the shell and brachipods au naturel Cuttle-fish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo Seems a periwinkle. "Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation, Solitary fragment of remains organic! Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence Speak! thou oldest primate!" Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla, And a lateral movement of the condyloid process, With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication, Ground the teeth together. And, from that imperfect dental exhibition, Stained with expressed juices of the weed Nicotian, Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs Of expectoration: "Which my name is Bowers, and my crust was busted Falling down a shaft in Calaveras county, But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces Home to old Missouri!" Rather up-to-date for so long ago. |