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128 NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
An' oh! how jealous those darkies'd be When by my side they spied her. An'oh! what a happy pair we'd be, All squished up into cider.
Chorus
Oh! I love Miss Dinah so, Oh! I love Miss Dinah so. She was so gay as Christmas day; Yar, har! I love her so!
One day, one day by de margin of de ribber
De wind blewed kinder fresh;
An' it made Miss Dinah shibber;
She shibbered so hard I thought she'd fall
So in my arms I caught her;
But when de wind blewed up again,
It blewed us in de water.
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De people dey said dey thought us both was drownded, Miss Dinah she was raked ashore, But I was never founded.
Chorus
These old dance-songs have a lively invitation which is still strong after all these years; for when one hears them, the feet instinctively pat in time and the body sways in rhythm with the lines. There is a gay abandon, an elemental joy about them. They are crude, yes, but who will say they are as cheap and vulgar as many of the songs people dance to to-day? They have their rough, primitive charm in music and in words, and they are in themselves worthy of our interest, apart from their historic association. They show us the lighter, happier side of slavery, and re-create for us the rustic merrymaking of the slaves on many old plantations of the South. They deserve a volume to themselves. |
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