Lida Keck-Wiggins, "Bouquet Charlie" (1906)
No one knows another name
People call him simple minded,
And laugh at him---What a shame!
Nothing very strange about him,
Save the story that they tell
Of his always wearing flowers
In his shabby coat lapel .
Once I asked him ,---"Bouquet Charlie ,
Tell me why from day to day
Never have I failed to find you
With a button-hole bouquet?"
Quick his dim old eyes grew tearful,
Mothah's gone to heaben, suh,
An ' when dyin ' mother axed me
Please to wear a rose fo' huh!"
Poor and black is "Bouquet Charlie,"
Simple minded, so they say,
But a royal decoration
Is his button-hole bouquet.
And of those who laugh at Charlie,
Is there one who in earth's strife
Is so loyal to a mother
Every day of all his life?
Published in Voice of the Negro, March 1906