We is all constructed diff’ent, d’ain’t no two of us de same;
  We cain’t he’p ouah likes an’ dislikes, ef we’se bad we ain’t to blame. 
  Ef we ‘se good, we need n’t show off, case you bet it ain’t ouah doin’
  We gits into su’ttain channels dat we jes’ cain’t he’p pu’suin’.

  But we all fits into places dat no othah ones could fill,
  An’ we does the things we has to, big er little, good er ill. 
  John cain’t tek de place o’ Henry, Su an’ Sally ain’t alike;
  Bass ain’t nuthin’ like a suckah, chub ain’t nuthin’ like a pike.

  When you come to think about it, how it ’s all planned out it ’s splendid. 
  Nuthin ’s done er evah happens, ’dout hit ‘s somefin’ dat ’s intended;
  Don’t keer whut you does, you has to, an’ hit sholy beats de dickens,—­
  Viney, go put on de kittle, I got one o’ mastah’s chickens.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

  A hush is over all the teeming lists,
    And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
  A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
    And vapors that obscure the sun of life. 
  And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
  Laments the passing of her noblest born.

  She weeps for him a mother’s burning tears—­
    She loved him with a mother’s deepest love. 
  He was her champion thro’ direful years,
    And held her weal all other ends above. 
  When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust,
  He raised her up and whispered, “Hope and Trust.”

  For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung
    That broke in warning on the ears of men;
  For her the strong bow of his power he strung,
    And sent his arrows to the very den
  Where grim Oppression held his bloody place
  And gloated o’er the mis’ries of a race.

  And he was no soft-tongued apologist;
    He spoke straightforward, fearlessly uncowed;
  The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist,
    And set in bold relief each dark hued cloud;
  To sin and crime he gave their proper hue,
  And hurled at evil what was evil’s due.

  Through good and ill report he cleaved his way. 
    Right onward, with his face set toward the heights,
  Nor feared to face the foeman’s dread array,—­
    The lash of scorn, the sting of petty spites. 
  He dared the lightning in the lightning’s track,
  And answered thunder with his thunder back.

  When men maligned him, and their torrent wrath
    In furious imprecations o’er him broke,
  He kept his counsel as he kept his path;
    ’T was for his race, not for himself he spoke. 
  He knew the import of his Master’s call,
  And felt himself too mighty to be small.

  No miser in the good he held was he,—­
    His kindness followed his horizon’s rim. 
  His heart, his talents, and his hands were free
    To all who truly needed aught of him. 
  Where poverty and ignorance were rife,
  He gave his bounty as he gave his life.