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Paul Laurence Dunbar - The Voice Of The Banjo
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In a small and lonely cabin out of noisy traffic`s way,
  Sat an old man, bent and feeble, dusk of face, and hair of gray,
  And beside him on the table, battered, old, and worn as he,
  Lay a banjo, droning forth this reminiscent melody:

  "Night is closing in upon us, friend of mine, but don`t be sad;
  Let us think of all the pleasures and the joys that we have had.
  Let us keep a merry visage, and be happy till the last,
  Let the future still be sweetened with the honey of the past.

  "For I speak to you of summer nights upon the yellow sand,
  When the Southern moon was sailing high and silvering all the land;
  And if love tales were not sacred, there`s a tale that I could tell
  Of your many nightly wanderings with a dusk and lovely belle.

  "And I speak to you of care-free songs when labour`s hour was o`er,
  And a woman waiting for your step outside the cabin door,
  And of something roly-poly that you took upon your lap,
  While you listened for the stumbling, hesitating words, `Pap, pap.`

  "I could tell you of a `possum hunt across the wooded grounds,
  I could call to mind the sweetness of the baying of the hounds,
  You could lift me up and smelling of the timber that `s in me,
  Build again a whole green forest with the mem`ry of a tree.

  "So the future cannot hurt us while we keep the past in mind,
  What care I for trembling fingers,--what care you that you are blind?
  Time may leave us poor and stranded, circumstance may make us bend;
  But they `ll only find us mellower, won`t they, comrade?--in the end."
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