If properly introduced, no verse in song expresses the never-ending back-breaking, mind-numbing soul-destroying labor of slavery better than Foster's third verse, as he wrote it.

The head must bow and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey must go:
A few more days and the trouble all will end
In the field where sugarcanes may grow.
A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter 'twill never be light,
A few more days till we totter down the road,
Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!