THE FUNERAL.

By Will Carleton, in Harper’s Weekly.

 

I was walking in Savannah, past a church decayed and dim,

When there slowly through the window came a plaintive funeral hymn;

And a sympathy awakened, and a wonder quickly grew,

Till I found myself environed in a little Negro pew.

 

Out in front a colored couple sat in sorrow, nearly wild;

On the altar was a coffin, in the coffin was a child.

I could picture him when living – curly hair, protruding lip –

And had seen perhaps a thousand in my hurried Southern trip.

 

But no baby ever rested in the soothing arms of death

That had fanned more flames of sorrow with his little fluttering breath;

And no funeral ever glistened with more sympathy profound

Than was in the chain of tear-drops that engulfed these mourners round.

 

Rose a sad, colored preacher at the little wooden desk –

With a manner grandly awkward, with a countenance grotesque;

With simplicity and shrewdness on his Ethiopian face;

With the ignorance and wisdom of a crushed undying race.

 

And he said:  “Now don’ be weepin’ for dis pretty bit o’ clay –

For de little boy who lived dere, he gone done an’ run away!

He was doin’ very finely, an’ he ‘preciate your love;

But his sure ‘nuff Father want him in de large house up above.

 

“Now He didn’t give you dat baby, by a hundred thousand mile!

He just think you need some sunshine, an’ He lend it for a while!

An’ He let you keep an’ love it till your hearts was bigger grown;

An’ dese silvery tears you’r sheddin’s jest de interest on de loan.

 

“Here yer oder pretty chilrun! – don’t be makin’ it appear

Dat your love got sort o’ ‘nopolized by dis little fellow here;

Don’ pile up too much your sorrow on deir little mental shelves,

So’s to kind o’ set ‘em wonderin’ if dey’re no account themselves!

 

“Just you think, you poor deah mounahs, creepin’ long o’er sorrow’s way,

What a blessed little picnic dis yere baby’s got today.

Your good faders an’ good moders crowd de little fellow round

In de angel-tended garden of de Big Plantation Ground.

 

“An’ dey ask him:  ‘Was your feet sore?’ an’ take off his little shoes,

An’ dey wash him an’ dey kiss him, an’ dey say:  ‘Now what’s de news?’

An’ de Lawd done cut his tongue loose; den de little fellow say:

“All our folks down in the valley tries to keep de hebben’y way.’

 

“An’ his eyes dey brightly sparkle at de pretty things he view;

Den a tear come, an’ he whisper:  ‘But I want my parents, too?’

But de Angel Chief Musician teach dat boy a little song;

Says: ‘If only dey be fait’ful dey will soon be comin’ ‘long.’

 

“An’ he’lll get an education dat will properly be worth

Seberal times as much as any you could buy on earth;

He’ll be in the Lawd’s big schoolhouse, widout no contempt or fear;

While der’s no end to de bad tings might have happened to him here.

 

“So, my pooah dejected mounahs, let your heart wid Jesus rest,

An’ don’t go to critercisn’ dat ar One w’at knows de best!

He have sent us many comforts – He have right to take away –

To de Lawd be praise an’ glory now and ever!

Let us pray.”