Paul Lawrence Dunbar 1872-1906 - When the Corn Pone's Hot

When the Corn Pone's Hot
by Paul Lawrence Dunbar 1872-1906
Informal translation from dialect - Carol Widing

There are times in life when Nature
Seems to slip a cog and go,
Just a-rattlin' down creation,
Like an ocean's overflow;
When the world just starts a-spinnin'
Like a picaninny's top,
And your cup of joy is brimming
'Til it seems about to slop,
And you feel just like a racah, FN 1
That is trainin' for to trot --
When your mammy says the blessing
And the corn pone's hot.

When you sit down at the table,
Kind of weary-like and sad,
And you're just a little tired,
And perhaps a little mad;
How your gloom turns into gladness,
How your joy drives out the doubt,
When the oven door is opened,
And the smell comes pourin' out;
Why, the electric light of Heaven
Seems to settle on the spot
When your mammy says the blessing
And the corn pone's hot.

When the cabbage pot is steaming
And the bacon good and fat,
When the chittlin's are a sputterin'
So's to show you where they're at;
Take away your soda biscuit,
Take away your cake and pie,
For the glory time is coming,
And it's approaching mighty nigh,
And you want to jump and holler,
Though you know you'd better not,
When your mammy says the blessing
And the corn pone's hot.

I have heard a-lots of sermons,
And I have heard o-lots of prayers,
And I've listened to some singin'
That has took me up the stairs
Of the Glory-Land and set me
Just below the Master's throne,
And have left my heart a-singin'
In a happy after tone;
But those words so sweetly murmured
Seem to touch the softest spot,
When my mammy says the blessing,
And the corn pone's hot.

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Source used: "Representative Poetry Online" (original dialect) at https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/html/1807/4350/poem768.html, online original text in numbered lines, 2003 by Ian Lancashire, University of Toronto. Footnotes are also there.

FN 1 - Racah - idiom re racing horse still in use - we find this phrase, "killer racah car," in someone's idiomatic description of street-racing Santa, see ://www.newcelica.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-5491.html. See Uncle Remus Heritage, Slasher X, Racing Santa.

Here's something - racah as from the Hebrew "RQH" and that means vain, empty, see ://books.google.com/books?id=453eZ3ihs2cC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=racah+horse&source=web&ots=G__bwryezO&sig=bn7EzXPhtCDPReqU3XV1L3Ub4Wo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result. Other references: lunar crater, science. YouTube - BOx cAr rAcA at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYiF4Wt6h7o. There also is a street racing online site.