| BLACKBIRD, blackbird in the cage, | |
| There's something wrong to-night. | |
| Far off the sheriff's footfall dies, | |
| The minutes crawl like last year's flies | |
| Between the bars, and like an age | 5 |
| The hours are long to-night. | |
| |
| 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. | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| 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? | 35 |
| |
| 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 | 40 |
| To eat the harvest of the fruit, | |
| Blackbird. | |
