Riders In The Night

I.     Masks     Death rides black-masked to-night; and through the land     Madness beside him brandishes a torch.     The peaceful farmhouse with its vine-wreathed porch     Lies in their way. Death lifts a bony hand     And knocks, and Madness makes a wild demand     Of fierce Defiance: then the night's deep arch     Reverberates, and under beech and latch     A dead face stares; shot where one took his stand.     Then down the night wild hoofs; the darkness beats;     And like a torrent through the startled town     Destruction sweeps; high overhead a flame;     And Violence that shoots amid the streets.     A piercing whistle: one who gallops down:     And Death and Madness go the way they came. II.     The Raid     Rain and black night. Beneath the covered bridge     The rushing Fork that roars among its rocks.     Nothing is out. Nothing? What's that which blocks     The long grey road upon the rain-swept ridge?     A horseman! No! A mask! As hewn from jet     With ready gun he waits and sentinels     The open way. Far off he hears wild bells;     And now a signal shrills through wind and wet.     Was that the thunder, or the rushing stream?     The tunnel of the bridge throbs with mad hoofs;     Now its black throat pours out a midnight cloud     Riders! behind whom steadily a gleam     Grows to a glare that silhouettes dark roofs,     Whence armed Pursuit gathers and gallops loud. III.     The Rendezvous     A lonely barn, lost in a field of weeds;     A fallen fence, where partly hangs a gate:     The skies are darkening and the hour is late;     The Indian dusk comes, red in rainy beads.     Along a path, which from a woodland leads,     Horsemen come riding who dismount and wait:     Here Anarchy conspires with Crime and Hate,     And Madness masks and on its business speeds.     Another Kuklux in another war     Of blacker outrage down the night they ride,     Brandishing a torch and gun before each farm.     Is Law asleep then? Does she fear? Where are     The servants of her strength, the Commonweath's pride?     And where the steel of her restraining arm? IV.     In Black And Red     The hush of death is on the night. The corn,     That loves to whisper to the wind; the leaves,     That dance with it, are silent: one perceives     No motion mid the fields, as dry as horn.     What light is that? It cannot be the morn!     Yet in the east it seems its witchcraft weaves     A fiery rose. Look! how it grows! it heaves     And flames and tosses! 'Tis a burning barn!     And now the night is rent with shouts and shots.     Dark forms and faces hurry past. The gloom     Gallops with riders. Homes are less than straw     Before this madness: human lives, mere lots     Flung in and juggled from the cap of Doom,     Where Crime stamps yelling on the face of Law.