KU KLUX

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.