Better sing one song for de Baptis' crop, Dey's mightily in de grass, grass, Dey's mightily in de grass."And de ole crow croak: "Don' work, no, no;"But de fiel'-lark say, "Yaas, yaas, An' I spec' you mighty glad, you debblish crow, Dat de Baptissis's in de grass, grass, Dat de Baptissis's in de grass!"Lord, thunder us up to de plowin'-match, [31]
Lord, peerten de hoein' fas', Yea, Lord, hab mussy on de Baptis' patch, Dey's mightily in de grass, grass, Dey's mightily in de grass.
____
1876.
Notes: Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn I think that the following note, prefixed by the authors to their poem, sufficiently explains what is to me one of their best humorous pieces:
"Not long ago a certain Georgia cotton-planter, driven to desperation by awaking each morning to find that the grass had quite outgrown the cotton overnight, and was likely to choke it, in defiance of his lazy freedmen's hoes and ploughs, set the whole State in a laugh by exclaiming to a group of fellow-sufferers: `It's all stuff about Cincinnatus leaving the plough to go into politics "for patriotism";he was just a-runnin' from grass!'
"This state of things -- when the delicate young rootlets of the cotton are struggling against the hardier multitudes of the grass-suckers --is universally described in plantation parlance by the phrase `in the grass';and Uncle Jim appears to have found in it so much similarity to the condition of his own (`Baptis'') church, overrun, as it was, by the cares of this world, that he has embodied it in the refrain of a revival hymn such as the colored improvisator of the South not infrequently constructs from his daily surroundings.
He has drawn all the ideas of his stanzas from the early morning phenomena of those critical weeks when the loud plantation-horn is blown before daylight, in order to rouse all hands for a long day's fight against the common enemy of cotton-planting mankind.
"In addition to these exegetical commentaries the Northern reader probably needs to be informed that the phrase `peerten up' means substantially `to spur up', and is an active form of the adjective `peert'
(probably a corruption of `pert'), which is so common in the South, and which has much the signification of `smart' in New England, as e.g., a `peert' horse, in antithesis to a `sorry' -- i.e., poor, mean, lazy one."The Mocking-birdSuperb and sole, upon a plumed spray [1]
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew, He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
What e'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.[11]
Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:
How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree?
____
1877.
Notes: The Mocking-bird Besides this sonnet Mr.Lanier wrote a longer `To Our Mocking-bird', consisting of three sonnets, and `Bob', a charming account, in prose, of the life and death of the bird apostrophized.
In his `Birds and Poets' (Boston, 1877), Mr.John Burroughs says that he knows of only two noteworthy poetical tributes to the mocking-bird, those by Whitman and by Wilde, both of which he quotes.
But since the appearance of his book many poems have been written to the mocking-bird, several of which are of enduring worth.
Indeed, several noteworthy poems had been published before the appearance of Mr.Burroughs's essay, as will appear from the list below.In a search of two days I found thirty-two different authors paying tribute to our marvelous singer:
Julia Bacon (see J.W.Davidson's `Living Writers of the South'.
New York: Carleton, 1869), St.L.L.Carter (ib.), Edna P.Clarke (`Century', 24.391, July, 1893), Fortunatus Crosby (`Davidson', l.c.), J.R.Drake (Duyckinck's `Cyclopaedia of American Literature'.
New York, 1855), R.T.W.Duke, Jr.(`Southern Bivouac', 2.631, March, 1887), W.T.Dumas (`The Golden Day and Miscellaneous Poems', Philadelphia, 1893), F.(`Southern Literary Messenger', Richmond, Va., 5.523, August, 1839), H.L.Flash (`Davidson', l.c.), Va.Gentleman (`Harper's Magazine', 15.566, September, 1857), Caroline Gilman (May's `American Female Poets', Philadelphia, 1865), Hannah F.Gould (`Davidson', l.c.), Paul Granald (`So.Lit.Mes.', 8, 508, August, 1842), P.H.Hayne (`Poems', Boston, 1882: two), W.H.Hayne (`Century', 24.676, September, 1893), C.W.Hubner (`Poems and Essays', New York, 1881), C.Lanier (`Sunday-school Times', Phila., July 8, 1893), S.Lanier (two, as above cited), Gen.Edwin G.Lee (`Southern Metropolis', Baltimore, 1869), A.B.Meek (in his `Songs and Poems of the South', New York, 1857), W.Mitchell (`Scribner's Magazine', 11.171, December, 1875), Nugator (`So.Lit.Mes.', 4.356, June, 1838), C.J.O'Malley (`So.Bivouac', 2.698, April, 1887), Albert Pike (Stedman & Hutchinson's `Amer.Lit.', New York, 1891, vol.6), D.Robinson (`Century', 24.480, July, 1893), Clinton Scollard (`Pictures in Song', New York, 1884), H.J.Stockard (`The Century', xlviii.898, Oct., 1894), T (`So.Lit.Mes.', 11.117, February, 1845), Maurice Thompson (`Poems', Boston, 1892: several; also `Lippincott's Magazine', 32.624, December, 1883), L.V.(`So.Lit.Mes.', 10.414, July, 1844), Walt Whitman (`Burroughs', l.c., also in Whitman's `Poems'), R.H.Wilde (`Burroughs', l.c., and Stedman & Hutchinson's `Am.Lit.', vol.5).
Roughly speaking, the poems may be divided into two classes --first those that, as in the Indian legend cited below, make out the mocking-bird only or chiefly a thief and thing of evil, and second those that find him, though a borrower, original and great.
