Again, in the hush of the evening,
When the work of the day is done,
And the binders go singing homeward
In the last red rays of the sun,
She will sit at the threshold waiting,
And her withered face lights with joy:
"Come, Johnnie," she says, as they pass her,
"Come into the house, my boy."
Five summers ago, her Johnnie
Went out in the smile of the morn,
Singing across the meadow,
Striding down through the corn--
He towered above the binders,
Walking on either side,
And the mother's heart within her
Swelled with exultant pride.
For he was the light of the household--
His brown eyes were wells of truth,
And his face was the face of the morning,
Lit with its pure, fresh youth,
And his song rang out from the hill-tops
Like the mellow blast of a horn,
As he strode o'er the fresh shorn meadows,
And down through the rows of corn.
But hushed were the voices of singing,
Hushed by the presence of death,
As back to the cottage they bore him--
In the noontide's scorching breath,
For the heat of the sun had slain him,
Had smitten the heart in his breast,
And he who had towered above them
Lay lower than all the rest.
The grain grows ripe in the sunshine,
And the summers ebb and flow,
And the binders stride to their labor
And sing as they come and go;
But never again from the hill-tops
Echoes the voice like a horn;
Never up from the meadows,
Never back from the corn.
Yet the poor, crazed brain of the mother
Fancies him always near;
She is blest in her strange delusion,
For she knoweth no pain nor fear,
And always she counts the binders
As they pass her cottage door;
Are they six, she counts them seven:
Are they seven, she counts one more.
[HUNG.]
Nine o'clock, and the sun shines as yellow and warm,
As though 'twere a fete day. I wish it would storm:
Wish the thunder would crash,
And the red lightning flash,
And lap the black clouds, with its serpentine tongue.
The day is too calm, for a man to be hung.
Hung! ugh, what a word!
The most heartless and horrible ear ever heard.
He has murdered, and plundered, and robbed, so "they say";
Been the scourge of the country, for many a day.
He was lawless and wild;
Man, woman, or child
Met no mercy, no pity, if found in his path;
He was worse than a beast of the woods, in his wrath.
And yet--to be hung,
Oh, my God! to be swung
By the neck to, and fro, for the rabble to see--
The thought sickens me.
Thirty minutes past nine. How the time hurries by,
But a half hour remains, at ten he will die.
Die? No! he'll be killed!
For God never willed
Men should die in this way.
"Vengeance is mine," He saith, "I will repay."
Yet what could be done
With this wild, lawless one!
No prison could hold him, and so--he must swing,
It's a horrible thing!