The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #6945   Message #1786932
Posted By: Jim Dixon
19-Jul-06 - 01:05 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Elegy (Plain Black Boy) (Oscar Brown Jr)
Subject: Lyr Add: OF DE WITT WILLIAMS... (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Copied from PoetryFoundation.org:

OF DE WITT WILLIAMS ON HIS WAY TO LINCOLN CEMETERY
by Gwendolyn Brooks

He was born in Alabama.
He was bred in Illinois.
He was nothing but a
Plain black boy.

Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.
Nothing but a plain black boy.

Drive him past the Pool Hall.
Drive him past the Show.
Blind within his casket,
But maybe he will know.

Down through Forty-seventh Street:
Underneath the L,
And Northwest Corner, Prairie,
That he loved so well.

Don't forget the Dance Halls—
Warwick and Savoy,
Where he picked his women, where
He drank his liquid joy.

Born in Alabama.
Bred in Illinois.
He was nothing but a
Plain black boy.

Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot.
Nothing but a plain black boy.

[Oscar Brown, Jr., set this poem to music and called it ELEGY (PLAIN BLACK BOY). It's on the album "Kicks! The Best of Oscar Brown, Jr."]