FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
  ________________________________________________
  
  The preacher seemed anxious to hear from me again, so I wrote the following:
  
  Again about the servants,
      It's no consequence to me
  If the African's a bondman,
      Or if he may be free.
  
  But in your loving kindness
      Behold then what you do,
  You are destroying of the servants
      And injuring their masters, too.
  
  They were contented and were happy,
      And constantly clothed and fed,
  Their families will cared for,
      No troubles in their head.
  
  They felt themselves at home
      And were acquainted all around,
  And in the merry dance
      Of an evening lightly bound.
  
  Working then in cotton fields
      At their leisure through the day,
  And at night were fresh and keen
      To fiddle, dance and play.
  
  No people half so happy,
      So cheerful and so gay,
  In Autumn constant meeting
      To sing and laugh and play.
  
  No people half so faithfully
      Obeyed that one command,
  To multiply, be fruitful,
      To replenish Dixie land.
  
  Some chose to go to meeting,
      To sing and join in prayer,
  As free to go to meeting
      As to dance they were.
  
  Where the masters held prayer meeting
      The servants did so too,
  To imitate their masters
      The servants tried to do.
  
  But now their comfort's over,
      Their times of jollification,
  For they are scattered and dispersed
      Through the most part of our nation.