"Well" to the first stanza marks the raising
of the curtain and we see the ardent Negro boy lover nonsensically
prattling to the one of his fancy about everything in creation until he
is so tired that he can scarcely stand erect. The curtain drops and
rises with the word "Den." In this, the second scene, he finally gets
around to the point where he makes all manner of awkward protestations
of love. The hearer of the Rhyme is left laughing, with a sort of
satisfactory feeling that possibly he succeeded in his suit and possibly
he didn't. Among the many examples of Rhymes where verse crowns serve as
curtains to divide the Acts into scenes may be mentioned "I Wish I Was
an Apple," "Rejected by Eliza Jane," "Courtship," "Plaster," "The Newly
Weds," and "Four Runaway Negroes."

Though the stanzas in Negro Rhymes commonly have just one kind of
rhyming, in some cases as many as three of the systems of rhyming are
found in one stanza. I venture to suggest the calling of those with one
system "Simple Rhymed Stanzas;" those with two, "Complex Rhymed
Stanzas;" those with more than two "Complicated Complex Rhymed Stanzas."

I next call attention to the seeming parodies found occasionally among
Negro Rhymes. The words of most Negro parodies are such that they are
not fit for print. We have recorded three: "He Paid Me Seven," Parody on
"Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep," and Parody on "Reign, Master Jesus,
Reign." We can best explain the nature of the Negro Parody by taking
that beautiful and touching well-known Jubilee song, "Steal Away to
Jesus" and briefly recounting the story of its origin. Its history is
well known. We hope the reader will not be disappointed when we say that
this song is a parody in the sense in which Negroes composed and used
parodies.

The words around which the whole song ranges itself are "Steal away to
Jesus, I hain't got long to stay here." Now the slave Negroes on the far
away plantations of the South occasionally met in the dead of night in
some secluded lonely spot for a religious meeting even when they had
been forbidden to do so by their masters. So they made up this song,
"Steal away to Jesus, I hain't got long to stay here." Late in the
afternoons when the slaves on any plantation sang it, it served as a
notice to slaves on other plantations that a secret religious meeting
was to be held that night at the place formerly mutually agreed upon for
meetings.

Now here is where the parody comes in under