We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,
And nailed a warning upon his door:
By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.
Down in the hollow,‘ mid crib and stack,
The roof of his low-porched house looms black;
Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack.
The clouds blow heavy toward the moon.
The edge of the storm will reach it soon.
The kildee cries and the lonesome loon.
The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare
Than the lightning makes with its angled flare,
When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.
In the pause of the thunder rolling low,
A rifle's answer — who shall know
From the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow?
Only the signature, written grim
At the end of the message brought to him —
A hempen rope and a twisted limb.
So arm and mount! and mask and ride!
The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!—
For a word too much men oft have died.