The Funeral

I was walking in Savannah past a church decayed and dim

When slowly through the window came a plaintive funeral hymn

With my sympathy awakened and a wonder quickly grew,

'til I found myself envired in a little colored pew.

Out front a colored couple sat and sorrowed yet a while.

On the altar was a casket and in the casket was a child.

I could picture him while living, curly hair protruding lips,

Why I'd seen perhaps a thousand in my hurried southern trips.

Rose a sad, old colored preacher from his little wooden desk

With a manner sort of awkward and countenance grotesque. The simplicity

And shrewdness in his Ethiopian face, showed the wisdom and ignorance of a crushed, undying race.

And he said, "Now don't be weepin' for this pretty bit of clay,

For the little boy who lived there has done gone and run away.

He was doing very finely and he appreciates your love,

But his shore 'nough father wanted him in the big house up above.

The Lord didn't give you that baby, by no hundred thousand miles,

He just thought you need some sunshine and he lent it for a while.

And he let you keep and love it til your hearts were bigger grown

And these silver tears you're shedding now, is just interest on the loan.

Just think my poor dear mourners creeping long on sorrow's way,

What a blessed picnic this here baby got today.

Your good fathers and good mothers crowd the little fella round

While the angels tend the garden of the big plantation ground.

And his eyes they brightly sparkle at the pretty things he view

But a tear came and he whispered, "I want my parents too".

Then the Angel's chief musicians teach that little boy a song

Says if only they be faithful, they'll soon be comin' long.

And so my poor dear mourners let your hearts with Jesus rest

And don't go to criticizn' the one what knows the best.

He has give us many comforts, he's got the right to take away

To the Lord be praise and glory, forever, let us pray.