Des' 'lasses an' watah, 'lasses an' watah.

W'y de bees is allus busy,
An' ain' got no time to was'?
Hit's beca'se dey knows de honey
Dey 's a makin', gwine to tas'
Lak 'lasses an' watah, 'lasses an' watah.

Oh, hit 's moughty mil' an' soothin',
An' hit don' go to yo' haid;
Dat 's de reason I 's a-backin'
Up de othah wo'ds I said,
"Des 'lasses an' watah, 'lasses an' watah."

THE DEBT

This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end--
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release--
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best--
God! but the interest!

ON THE DEDICATION OF DOROTHY HALL

TUSKEGEE, ALA., APRIL 22, 1901.

Not to the midnight of the gloomy past,
Do we revert to-day; we look upon
The golden present and the future vast
Whose vistas show us visions of the dawn.

Nor shall the sorrows of departed years
The sweetness of our tranquil souls annoy,
The sunshine of our hopes dispels the tears,
And clears our eyes to see this later joy.

Not ever in the years that God hath given
Have we gone friendless down the thorny way,
Always the clouds of pregnant black were riven
By flashes from His own eternal day.

The women of a race should be its pride;
We glory in the strength our mothers had,
We glory that this strength was not denied
To labor bravely, nobly, and be glad.

God give to these within this temple here,
Clear vision of the dignity of toil,
That virtue in them may its blossoms rear
Unspotted, fragrant, from the lowly soil.

God bless the givers for their noble deed,
Shine on them with the mercy of Thy face,
Who come with open hearts to help and speed
The striving women of a struggling race.

A ROADWAY

Let those who will stride on their barren roads
And prick themselves to haste with self-made goads,
Unheeding, as they struggle day by day,
If flowers be sweet or skies be blue or gray:
For me, the lone, cool way by purling brooks,
The solemn quiet of the woodland nooks,
A song-bird somewhere trilling sadly gay,
A pause to pick a flower beside the way.

BY RUGGED WAYS

By rugged ways and thro' the night
We struggle blindly toward the light;
And groping, stu