Sometimes the poet went even further and presented only the barest suggestion of the thought in his mind, leaving the reader to supply the rest. Such is the case in the poem next to be set down as an example, illustrative of the poet’s method. It consists of but a single stanza: De day’s done gone, de wuk’s done done, An’ Mahstah he smoke he pipe; But nigga he ain’t done jes yit, Cause--de watermillion’s ripe. Here we have in four brief lines an entirely adequate suggestion of the predatory habits of “Nigga,” and of his attitude of mind toward “watermillions.” With the bare statement of the fact that the fruit in question has attained its succulent maturity, we are left to discover for ourselves the causal relation between that fact and the intimated purpose of “Nigga” to continue his activities during the hours of darkness. The exceeding subtlety of all this cannot fail to awaken the reader’s admiring sympathy. Perhaps the most elaborately wrought out of these song ballads is the one which has been reserved for the last. Its text here follows: Possum’s good an’ hoe cake’s fine, An’ so is mammy’s pies, But bes’ of all good t’ings to eat Is chickens, fryin’ size. How I lubs a moonlight night When stars is in de skies! But sich nights ain’t no good to git De chickens, fryin’ size. De moonlight night is shiny bright, Jes’ like a nigga’s eyes, But dark nights is the bes’ to git De chickens, fryin’ size. When Mahstah he is gone to sleep, An’ black clouds hides de skies, Oh, den’s de time to crawl an’ creep Fer chickens, fryin’ size. Fer den prehaps you won’t git kotched Nor hab to tell no lies, An’ mebbe you’ll git safe away Wid chickens, fryin’ size. But you mus’ look out sharp fer noise An’ hush de chicken’s cries, Fer mighty wakin’ is de squawks Of chickens, fryin’ size. To gross minds this abrupt, admonitory ending of the poem will be disappointing. It leaves the reader wishing for more--more chicken, if not more poetry. And yet in this self-restrained ending of the piece the poet is fully justified by the practice of other great masters of the poetic art. Who that has read Coleridge’s superb fragment “Kubla Khan,” does not long to know more of the “stately pleasure dome” and of those “caverns measureless to man” through which “Alph the sacred river ran, down to a sunless sea”?