Page:Poems for Workers - ed. Manuel Gomez (1925).djvu/29

 When he who must hang breathes neither a prayer nor a

curse,

Nor speaks any word, not looks around, nor does anything

save to chew his bit of tobacco and yawn

with unsated sleep.

They grew afraid of the hidden moon and the stars, they

grew afraid of the wind that held its breath, and

of the living things that never stirred in their

sleep,

And they gurgled a bargain to him from under their

masks.

I know what they promised to him, for I have heard

thrice the bargains that hounds yelp to the

trapped lion:

They asked him to promise that he would turn back

from his road, that he would eat carrion as they,

that he would lap the leash for the sake of the

offals, as they―and thus he would save his life.

But not one lone word he answered―he only chewed his

bit of tobacco in silent contempt

IV.

as their face became whatever had been

white inside of the six men, even to their mothers'

milk,

And they inflicted on him the final shame, and ordered

that he should kiss the flag.

They always make bounden men kiss the flag in America,

where men never kiss men, even when they

march forth to die.

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