Baby Cobina
Brown Baby Cobina, with his large black velvet eyes,
His little coos of ecstasies, his gurgling of surprise,
With brass bells on his ankles, that laugh where’er he goes;
It’s so rare for bells to tinkle, above brown dimpled toes.
Brown Baby Cobina is so precious that we fear
Something might come and steal him, when we grownups are not near;
So we tied bells on his ankles, and kissed on them this charm—
“Bell, guard our Baby Cobina from all devils and all harm.”
From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.
Gladys May Casely Hayford
Gladys May Casely Hayford, also known as Aquah Laluah, was born on May 11, 1904, in Axim on the Gold Coast (now, Ghana). Her mother, Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford was a feminist, educator, and writer who had been born in Sierra Leone. Adelaide’s father, and Casely Hayford’s maternal grandfather, William Smith Jr., became, according to Casely Hayford, the first Registrar of the Court of Mixed Commissions in Freetown, Sierra Leone.