The sky is like a heavy lid Out here beyond the door to-night. What’s that? A mutter down the street. What’s that? The sound of yells and feet For what you didn’t do or did You’ll pay the score to-night. No use to reek with reddened sweat, No use to whimper and to sweat. They’ve got the rope; they’ve got the guns, They’ve got the courage and the guns; An’ that’s the reason why to-night No use to ask them any more. They’ll fire the answer through the door— You’re out to die to-night. There where the lonely cross-road lies, There is no place to make replies; But silence, inch by inch, is there, And the right limb for a lynch is there; And a lean daw waits for both your eyes, Blackbird. Perhaps you’ll meet again some place. Look for the mask upon the face; That’s the way you’ll know them there— A white mask to hide the face. And you can halt and show them there The things that they are deaf to now, And they can tell you what they meant— To wash the blood with blood. But how If you are innocent? Blackbird singer, blackbird mute, They choked the seed you might have found. Out of a thorny field you go— For you it may be better so— And leave the sowers of the ground To eat the harvest of the fruit, Blackbird. THE SON (_Southern Ohio Market Town_) I heard an old farm-wife, Selling some barley, Mingle her life with life And the name “Charley.” Saying: “The crop’s all in, We’re about through now; Long nights will soon begin, We’re just us two now. “Twelve bushels at sixty cents, It’s all I carried— He sickened making fence; He was to be married— “It feels like frost was near— His hair was curly. The spring was late that year, But the harvest early.” _Robert Frost_