I dreamed a dream at the midnight deep,
When fancies come and go
To vex a man in his soothing sleep
With thoughts of awful woe--
I dreamed that I was a corner-man
Of a nigger minstrel show.
I cracked my jokes, and the building rang
With laughter loud and long;
I hushed the house as I softly sang
An old plantation song--
A tale of the wicked slavery days
Of cruelty and wrong.
A small boy sat on the foremost seat--
A mirthful youngster he;
He beat the time with his restless feet
To each new melody,
And he picked me out as the brightest star
Of the black fraternity.
“Oh father,” he said, “what _would_ we do
If the corner-man should die?
I never saw such a man--did you?
He makes the people cry,
And then, when he likes, he makes them laugh.”
The old man made reply--
“We each of us fill a very small space
In the great creation's plan,
If a man don't keep his lead in the race
There's plenty more that can;
The world can very soon fill the place
Of even a corner-man.”
. . . . .
I woke with a jump, rejoiced to find
Myself at home in bed,
And I framed a moral in my mind
From the words the old man said.
The world will jog along just the same
When its corner-men are dead.