Paul Laurence Dunbar

“ An' it is that the folks I meet in any other spot
Ain't half so good as them I knowed back home in Possum Trot.
I know you 've never heerd the name, it ain't a famous place,
An' I reckon ef you 'd search the map you could n't find a trace
Of any sich locality as this I 've named to you;
But never mind, I know the place, an' I love it dearly too.
It don't make no pretensions to bein' great or fine,
The circuses don't come that way, they ain't no railroad line.
It ain't no great big city, where the schemers plan an' plot,
But jest a little settlement, this place called Possum Trot. ”

“ I reckon that it done me good, an' yet it done me harm,
That oil was found so plentiful down there on my ole farm.
We 've got a new-styled preacher, our church is new-styled too,
An' I 've come down from what I knowed to rent a cushioned pew. ”