[Okay, this piece is actually titled “A Black Bird That Could
Sing But Wouldn’t Sing: A Lyric of the American Southern States.” It was first
published in The Figaro, 16 February 1876.
The author’s sense of entitlement to the labor of the handicapped former slave
who shows up at his house in this burlesque of Poe’s “The Raven” is priceless,
Notice especially how it was in this poet’s view the plantation owner who “paid
the piper in the good old days of yore,” not the enslaved laborer. And it is
the freed slave who will “revel in [those days] no more!”]
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and
weary,
O’er the War of the Rebellion and the things that were
before;
While I sat absorbed in thinking, brandy cocktails slowly
drinking,
Suddenly I saw a blinking, one-eyed figure at my door—
Saw a nasty, stinking, blinking, one-eyed figure at my door,
Standing up as stiff as steel-yards, just across my chamber
floor,
Peeping in, and—nothing more.
Ah ! I never shall forget it, how in glancing round I met
it,
And I ever shall regret it that I looked towards that door,
For I saw a monstrous figure—like a giant, only bigger,
And there stood a big buck n――r, with his back against the
door,
Darting, with a hideous snigger, glances right across my
floor,
A reeking, lantern-jaw’d buck n――r bolt upright against my
door,
Glancing in, and—nothing more.
Quick instinctively espying where my ham and eggs were
frying,
There I saw a poker lying near the hearth upon the floor,
And with most determined vigor seized and hurled it at the
n――r.
But so quick was he on the trigger, as he jump’d it struck
the door,
Struck beneath him, as he bounded just like lightning from
the floor,
As like a tarr’d and feather’d Mercury, up he bounded from
the floor,
Grazed his heel, and—nothing more.
Back toward my hearth-stone looking, where my ham and eggs
were cooking,
Shaking, quaking as no mortal ever shaked or quaked before,
Soon I heard the ugly sinner mutter forth these words, “Some
dinner,”
Looking still more gaunt and thinner, even than he looked before,
These the words the heathen mutter’d—the sole and only sound
then uttered,
As down from his high jump he flutter’d ’lighting on his major
toe,
“Dinner,” said he, nothing more.
Then his impudence beginning, he displayed his gums in
grinning,
And with eyes aught else but winning, leer’d upon me from
the door,
Speaking thusly: “’Tis your treat, man, I’ll never go into
the street, man,
Till I get some grub to eat, man, I shall never leave your door,
Never quit them aigs and bacon, now just done, I’m very
sure,
Never till I’ve cleaned the platter, though you beat me till
I roar,
Treat me, or I’ll charge ’em sure.”
Then toward the fireplace marching, where my coffee too was
parching,
Boldly stalked this sassy n――r right across my chamberfloor,
Never stopped to bend or bow, sir, then I knew there’d be a
row, sir,
For I made a solemn vow, sir, he should soon recross that
floor,
And I kicked him through the room, sir, back again toward
the door,
Kick’d and cuffed him, in my anger, back against my
chamber-door,
Then I kicked him yet once more.
But this midnight bird beguiling my stirr’d spirit into
smiling.
By the wretched, rabid, ravenous look his hungry visage
wore,
“Tho’,” I said, “thou art a freedman, thou hast gone so much
to seed, man,
So I’ll give you one good feed, man, as you seem to be so poor—
One good feed in your sore need, man, as you seem so very
poor;
The eggs and meat shall be my treat, if with light work
you'll pay the score.”
Quoth the n――r, “Work no more.”
Much I marveled this ungainly n――r should refuse so plainly
Just to do a little work, for food he craved and needed
sore,
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Should decline to labor seeing that he was so deuced poor;
Should refuse to earn a dinner, which he hungered for I’m
sure,
And would have damned his soul by stealing had he hoped to
make the door;
Escaping thence to—work no more.
Awhile I sat absorbed in musing, what meant he by this
refusing,
Till, mad, I turned into abusing the odious, odorous
blackamoor.
“Sure,” said I, “you must be crazy, to be so infernal lazy,
So cussedly, outrageous lazy, as to want to work no more;
You ugly, grim, ungainly, ghastly, heathen, savage
blackamoor,
Will you even work for wages—food and clothes and payment
sure?"
Quoth the n――r—“Work no more.”
“N――r," said I, "horrid demon! N――r still if slave or freeman,
Pause and ponder ere you answer this one question, I
implore:
Have you got no sense of feeling? do you mean to live by
stealing?
Or by working and fair dealing; tell me truly, I implore,
On your honor as a n――r, will you ever labor more?
Plough in corn or hoe in cotton, as you did in days of yore?”
Quoth the N――r—“Nevermore!”
Startled by the stillness broken by reply so flatly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “this big n――r once could eat enough for
four,
When on some grand rice plantation, he could out-eat all
creation,
Until his corporal situation warned him he could eat no
more;
Scorning any calculation of how much cash it cost I’m sure,
For the master paid the piper in the good old days of yore,
Days he’ll revel in no more!”
“N――r,” said I, “thing of evil! quit my sight! go to the devil!
Or even yet, pause, reconsider terms I’ll offer you no more,
Tell me truly, I implore you, for the last time I conjure
you,
If good wages I ensure you, and clothes the best you ever
wore,
Will you work three days in seven, at tasks far lighter than
of yore?
Only three short days in seven—labor light and payment sure?”
Quoth the n――r—“Work no more.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, n――r man,” I said
upstarting,
“Get you gone to where you came from, let me see your face
no more.
Quick, vamose, cut dirt—skedaddle—seek some far-off, distant
shore,
Haste, relieve me of that visage—darken not again my door,
Join the army—go to Texas! Never come back here to vex us,
Take your gaze from off my victuals—take your carcase from
my door”—
Quoth the n――r—“Nevermore.”
And the n――r, never working, still is shirking—still is
shirking
Every kind of honest labor, in the house or out of door,
And his eye has all the seeming of a vulture’s starved and
dreaming,
And my bacon, gently steaming tempts him still to cross my
floor.
But I’ll gamble with that poker that I hurled at him before,
That I’ll maul his very lights out, if he dares to pass that
door,
He shall work or—eat no more!
