I stumbled upon this thread while looking up old posts that I had written for a project I'm doing.

For what it's worth, I want to share that the "I Wish I Had Someone to Love Me" verse in "Meet Me by the Moonlight" and in
"The Prisoner's Song" is very much like this song that is included in Thomas W. Talley's important 1922 collection of Negro Folk Rhymes, Wise And Other Wise:

Mamma's Darling

Wid flowers on my shoulders,
An' wid slippers on my feet;
I's my mammy's darlin.'
Don't you think I'se sweet?

I wish I had a fourpence.
Den I wish I had a dime,
I wish I had a Sweetheart,
To kiss me all de time.

I has apples on de table,
An' I has peaches on de shelf;
But I wish I had a husband-
I's tired stayin' to myself.

[Kennikat Press edition, p, 188]

**

In this book, Talley (an African American professor at Fisk University) wrote that the songs in this book were either from his memory or were gathered from his (African American students). Writing in 1921, Dr. Talley indicated that "A few of the Rhymes bear the mark of somewhat recent date in composition. The majority of them, however, were sung by Negro fathers and mothers in the dark dats of slavery..." [p. 229]

Talley also indicated that "Many Negro Folk Rhymes were used as baho and fiddle (violin) songs. It ought to be borne in minds, however, that eventhese were quite often reapeated without singing or playing. It was common in the early days of the public schools in the South to hear Negro children use these as declamations." [p. 235]

-snip-

A "declamation" is "loud speaking in public; especially, the public recitation of speeches as an exercise in schools and colleges; as, the practice declamation by students."

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/declamation