Sterling A. Brown
(born) 1901


Mose

Mose is black and evil
And damns his luck
Driving Master Schwartz's
Big coal truck.

He's got no gal,
He's got no jack,
No fancy silk shirts
For his back.

But summer evenings,
Hard luck Mose
Goes in for all
The fun he knows.

On the corner kerb
With a sad quartette
His tenor peals
Like a clarinet.

O hit it Moses
Sing att thing

But Mose's mind
Goes wandering; --

And to the stars
Over the town
Floats, from a good man
Way, way down --

A soft song, filled
With a misery
Older than Mose
Will ever be.