From The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music:

MAMMY'S LITTLE COAL BLACK ROSE
Words, Raymond Egan. Music, Richard A. Whiting. 1916.

I heard a pickaninny crying down in Tennessee one night.
His little heart was nearly breaking just because he wasn't white.
Then his dear old Mammy kiss'd him and she said, "Chile, don' you sigh.
Weep no more, my baby." Then she sang a Dixie lullaby:

CHORUS: You better dry your eyes, my little coal-black rose.
You better go to sleep and let those eyelids close.
'Cause you're dark, don't start a-pining.
You're a cloud with a silver lining.
Tho' ev'ry old crow thinks his babe am white as snow,
Your dear old mammy knows you're mighty like a rose;
And when the angels gave those kinky curls to you,
They put a sunbeam in your disposition too, that's true.
The reason you're so black, I 'spose,
They forgot to give your mammy a talcum powder chamois.
So don't you cry, don't you sigh,
'Cause you're mammy's little coal-black rose.

And then I saw that dear old mammy kiss those baby tears away,
While in her arms the baby nestled happy as a child at play.
Then she whisper'd, "Mammy loves you. You're as sweet as possum pie.
Go to sleep, my honey, while your mammy sings a lullaby:" CHORUS

[A recording by Harry Macdonough and the Orpheus Quartet, released in 1917, can be heard at The Virtual Gramophone.]