Poems for Workers (Gomez 1925)/When the Cock Crows
When the Cock Crows
By Arturo Giovannitti
To the Memory of Frank Little, Hanged at Midnight.
I.
Six Men drove up to his house at midnight and woke the
poor woman who kept it.
And asked her: "Where is the man who spoke against
the war and insulted the army?"
And the old woman took fear of the men and the hour,
and showed them the room where he slept,
And when they made sure it was he whom they wanted,
they dragged him out of his bed with blows, tho'
he was willing to walk,
And they fastened his hands on his back, and they drove
him across the black night,
And there was no moon and no stars and not any visible
thing, and even the faces of the men were eaten
with the leprosy of the dark, for they were masked
with black shame,
And nothing showed in the gloom save the glow of his
eyes and the flame of his soul that scorched the
face of Death.
II.
No One gave witness of what they did to him, after
they took him away, until a dog barked at his
corpse,
But I know, for I have seen masked men with the rope,
and the eyeless things that howl against the sun,
and I have ridden beside the hangman at midnight.
They kicked him, they cursed him, they pushed him, they
spat on his cheeks and his brow,
They stabbed his ears with foul oaths, they smeared his
clean face with the pus of their ulcerous words.
And nobody saw or heard them. But I call you to witness
John Brown, I call you to witness, you Molly
Macguires,
And you Albert Parsons, George Engel, Adolph Fischer,
August Spies,
And you Leo Frank, kinsman of Jesus, and you, Joe Hill,
twice my germane in the rage of the song and the
fray,
And all of you, sun-dark brothers, and all of you harriers
of torpid faiths, hasteners of the great day, pro-
pitiators of the holy deed,
I call you all to the bar of the dawn to give witness if
this is not what they do in America when they
wake up men at midnight to hang them until
they're dead.
III.
Under a railroad trestle, under the heart-rib of Progress,
they circled his neck with the noose, but never a
word he spoke.
Never a word he uttered, and they grew weak from his
silence,
For the terror of death is strongest upon the men with
the rope,
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.
Now Black 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.
But tho' to him all flags are holy that men fight for
and death hallows,
He did not kiss it—I swear it by the one that shall wrap
my body.
He did not kiss it, and they trampled upon him in their
frenzy that had no retreat save the rope,
And to him who was ready to die for a light he would
never see shine, they said: "You are a coward",
To him who would not barter a meaningless word for
his life, they said: "You are a traitor",
And they drew the noose round his neck, and they pulled
him up to the trestle and they watched him until
he was dead,
Six masked men whose faces were eaten with the cancer
of the dark,
One for each Steeple of thy temple, O Labor.
V.
NOW HE IS dead, but now that he is dead is the door
of your dungeon faster, O money changers and
scribes, and priests and masters of slaves?
Are men now readier to die for you without asking the
wherefore of the slaughter?
Shall now the pent-up spirit no longer connive with the
sun against your midnight?
And are we now all reconciled to your rule, and are
you safer and we humbler, and is the night eternal
and the day forever blotted out of the skies,
And all blind yesterdays risen, and all tomorrows entombed,
Because of six faceless men and ten feet of rope and
one corpse dangling unseen in the blackness under
a railroad trestle?
No, I say, no! It swings like a terrible pendulum that
shall soon ring out a mad tocsin and call the red
cock to the crowing.
No, I say, no, for someone will bear witness of this to
the dawn,
Someone will stand straight and fearless tomorrow between
the armed hosts of your slaves, and shout to
them the challenge of that silence you could not
break.
VI.
"BROTHERS—he will shout to them—are you then, the
Godborn, reduced to a mute of dogs
That you will rush to the hunt of your kin at the blowing
of a horn?
Brothers, have then the centuries that created new suns
in the heavens, gouged out the eyes of your soul,
That you should wallow in your blood like swine,
That you should squirm like rats in a carrion,
That you, who astonished the eagles, should beat blindly
about the night of murder like bats?
Are you, brothers, who were meant to scale the stars,
to crouch forever before a footstool,
And listen forever to one word of shame and subjection,
And leave the plough in the furrow, the trowel on the
wall, the hammer on the anvil, and the heart of
the race on the knees of screaming women, and
the future of the race in the hands of babbling children,
And yoke on your shoulders the halter of hatred and
fury,
And dash head-down against the bastions of folly,
Because a colored cloth waves in the air, because a
drum beats in the street,
Because six men have promised you a piece of ribbon on
your coat, a carved tablet on a wall and your name
in a list bordered with black?
Shall you, then, be forever the stewards of death, when
life waits for you like a bride?
Ah, no, Brothers, not for this did our mothers shriek
with pain and delight when we tore their flanks
with our first cry;
Not for this were we given command of the beasts,
Not with blood but with sweat were we bidden to achieve
our salvation.
Behold! I announce now to you a great tidings of joy,
For if your hands that are gathered in sheaves for the
sickle of war unite as a bouquet of flowers between
the warm breasts of peace,
Freedom will come without any blows save the hammers
on the chains of your wrists, and the picks on the
walls of your jails!
Arise, and against every hand jeweled with the rubies
of murder,
Against every mouth that sneers at the tears of mercy,
Against every foul smell of the earth,
Against every head that a footstool raises over your
head,
Against every word that was written before this was
said,
Against every happiness that never knew sorrow,
And every glory that never knew love and sweat,
Against silence and death, and fear
Arise with a mighty roar!
Arise and declare your war;
For the wind of the dawn is blowing,
For the eyes of the East are glowing,
For the lark is up and the cock is crowing,
And the day of judgement is here!"
VII.
THUS shall he speak to the great parliament of the
dawn, the witness of this murderous midnight,
And even if none listens to him, I shall be there and
acclaim,
And even if they tear him to shreds, I shall be there to
confess him before your guns, and your gallows, O,
Monsters!
And even tho' you smite me with your bludgeon upon
my head,
And curse me and call me foul names, and spit on my
face and on my bare hands,
I swear that when the cock crows I shall not deny him.
And even if the power of your lie be so strong that my
own mother curse me as a traitor with her hands
clutched over her old breasts,
And my daughters with the almighty manes, turn their
faces from me and call me coward,
And the One whose love for me is a battleflag in the
storm, scream for the shame of me and adjure my
name,
I swear that when the cock crows I shall not deny him.
And if you chain me and drag me before the Beast that
guards the seals of your power, and the caitiff that
conspires against the daylight demand my death,
And your hangman throw a black cowl over my head and
tie a noose around my neck,
And the black ghoul that pastures on the graves of the
saints dig its snout into my soul and howl the
terrors of the everlasting beyond in my ears,
Even then, when the cock crows, I swear I shall not
deny him.
And if you spring the trap under my feet and hurl me
into the gloom, and in the revelation of that instant
eternal a voice shriek madly to me
That the rope is forever unbreakable,
That the dawn is never to blaze,
That the night is forever invincible,
Even then, even then, I shall not deny him.