Page:The book of American negro poetry.djvu/64

12 And now they beat at the prison door,
 * "Ho, keeper, do not stay!

We are friends of him whom you hold within,
 * And we fain would take him away

"From those who ride fast on our heels
 * With mind to do him wrong;

They have no care for his innocence,
 * And the rope they bear is long."

They have fooled the jailer with lying words,
 * They have fooled the man with lies;

The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,
 * And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail,
 * And hard and fast they ride,

And the leader laughs low down in his throat,
 * As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,
 * And the doctor one of white,

And the minister, with his oldest son,
 * Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?
 * Tis but a little space,

And the time will come when these shall dread
 * The mem'ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark,
 * And the weight of him in my grain,

I feel in the throe of his final woe
 * The touch of my own last pain.