As I talk with learned people,
I have heard a strange remark,
Quite beyond my comprehension,
And I’m stumbling in the dark.
They advise: Don’t be too modest,
Whatsoever thing is said,
Give to everything its color,
Always call a spade a spade.
Now I am not versed in Logic,
Nor these high-flown classic things,
And am not adept in solving
Flighty aphoristic flings;
So this proverb seems to baffle
All the efforts I have made-
Now what else is there to call it,
When a spade is just a spade?????
From: an anthology of verse by American Negroes,
reprinted by permission of Mo
