By Lewis Henderson, Songs from a Littered Desk; Pittsburgh Courier, March 1, 1930

Sombre and dim, was the light of the moon,
And the stars ceased to twinkle and glow,
For the moon and the stars with a pitying gaze
Were waiting, and watching below.

Silently treading through tall rustling grass,
Like ghosts and the spectres of old,
There hastened a number of stern visage men
All hardened and rugged, and bold.

Bound in the their midst limped a creature forlorn,
With a countenance haggard and white,
For he knew he was doomed by the code of the South
To cross the Great Border that night.

Cresting the hill loomed a vibrant young elm
With its arms stretching up toward the sky.
And its branches quite knowingly swayed in the breeze
As the death party grimly drew nigh.

Wierdly [sic] the screech of a lone owl was heard
And its mate answered back ‘cross the plain.
While the elm tree was bowed by the strength of the men,
Then a noose, and it straightened again.

Black was the night and the secret it held.
For Fate had collected her toll;
But the low moaning wind seemed to whisper the cry
“Oh, won’t someone pray for his soul!”