I was walking in Savannah past a church, decayed and dim   When slowly through the window came a plaintive funeral hymn   My sympathy awakened and a wonder quickly grew   'Til I found myself environed in a little colored pew      Out front a colored couple sat in sorrow nearly wild   On the altar was a casket and in the casket was a child   I could picture him while living, curly hair protruding lips   I'd seen perhaps a thousand in my hurried southern trips      Then rose a sad, old colored preacher from his little wooden desk   With a manner sort of awkward and countenance grotesque   The simplicity and shrewdness in his Ethiopian face   Showed the wisdom and the ignorance of a crushed, undying race      And he said, "Now don't be weepin' for this pretty bit of clay   For the little boy who lived there has done gone and run away   He was doing very finely and he 'ppreciates your love   But his sho nough father wanted him in the big house up above      The Lord didn't give you that baby, by no hundred thousand miles   He just think you need some sunshine and he lent it for a while   And he let you keep and love him 'til your hearts were bigger grown   And these silver tears you're shedding now, are just interest on the loan      Just think my poor dear mourners creeping long on sorrow?s way   What a blessed picnic this here baby got today   Your good fathers and good mothers crowd the little fella round   In the angels 'tender garden of the big plantation ground      And his eyes they brightly sparkle at the pretty things he view   But a tear came and he whispered, "I want my parents too"   Then the angel's chief musicians teach that little boy a song   Says if only they be faithful, they'll soon be comin' 'long      And so my poor dear mourners, let your hearts with Jesus rest   And don't go to criticizn' the one what knows the best   He has give us many comforts He's got the right to take away   To the Lord be praised in glory, now and ever, let us pray