A lawyer had a legal mouse,
A naughty one they say,
That took possession of his house
And papers ev'ry day,

His books and records it would gnaw,
Without regard for loss,
Its disrespect and lack of awe
Just kept the owner cross.

When no revenge the man could get,
His anger blazed so high,
Till he declared when next they met,
The mouse would surely die.

The murder, all the world should know,
He planned with ire intense,
To strike the mouse a fatal blow
And call it self-defence.

One day the desk he opened wide,
The mouse in regal state,
Sat in a pigeon hole, inside,
In style the scene was great.

A stroke the lawyer at it gave,
A star it made to flee,
Into a hole its life to save,
To find security.

When he had guarded well the hole,
It scrambled for the floor,
Again he kept it from the goal,
Its life endangered more.

The door of hope he seemed to close
Upon the enemy;
Its feelings then, nobody knows,
Its longings to be free.

Up through his sleeve it made a break,
In search of freedom sweet;
His arm he then began to shake,
To bring it to his feet.

His cuff was thrown away, no doubt,
The button had to go;
His coat and vest he tore about,
The mouse had scared him so.

All o'er his body, too, he felt
The mouse, though such a prig,
Himself he then began to pelt,
To yell and dance a jig.

His thoughts he threw around his will,
The same he had not made;
He felt uncertain which would kill,
Such terror was displayed.

The neighbors and the police heard
The noise of that affray;
And to the spot, without a word,
They quickly made their way.

Upon his back, between his shirts,
The little mouse was found.
'Twas hard, amid' so many flirts,
To bring it to the ground.

Out of his coat, upon advice,
He came, with haste replete.
The room-door opened in a trice
And made good his retreat.

The mouse was taken from its place
Of hiding and of dread,
So painful was the last embrace,
It fell down by him—dead.

Then to the crowd the lawyer said,
'Of such, my friends, beware,
Mine enemy, the mouse, is dead,
Such things we all can spare.

'The killing, in my case, was one
Of self-defence, 'tis true;
And, on the whole, I've only done
As other men would do;

'But still, my hands are red with blood!
That mandate, 'Do not kill,'
Prevents the waters of the flood
From washing off the ill.'

To all who shall the story read,
And many will, I trust,
Don't kill a helpless mouse, I plead,
Unless the killing's just.

Have you ever heard of lynching in the great United States?
'Tis an awful, awful story that the Negro man relates,
How the mobs the laws have trampled, both the human and divine,
In their killing helpless people as their cruel hearts incline.

Not the heathen! 'Tis the Christian with the Bible in his hand,
Stands for pain and death to tyrannize the weaklings of the land;
Not the red man nor the Spaniard kills the blacks of Uncle Sam,
'Tis the white man of the nation who will lunch the sons of Ham.

To a limb upon the highway does a Negro's body hang,
Riddled with a hundred bullets from the bloody, thirsty gang;
Law and order thus defying, and there's none to say them nay.
"Thus," they say, to keep their power, "Negroes must be kept at bay."

How his back is lacerated! how the scene is painted red,
By the blood of one poor Negro till he numbers with the dead!
Listen to the cry of anguish from a soul that God has made,
But it fails to reach the pity of the demons in the raid.

To a tree we find the Negro and to him a chain beside,
There a horse to it is fastened and the whip to him applied.
Thus he pulls the victim's body till it meets a dying fate,
And to history is given a new scandal to relate.

Limb from limb he's torn asunder! See the savage lynchers grin!
Then the flesh is cut in pieces and the souvenirs begin;
Each must have the piece allotted for the friends at home to see,
Relatives will cluster round him, laughing, dancing, filled with glee.

To a stake they bind the Negro, pile the trash around him high,
Make the fire about his body; it is thus that he must die.
Burn him slowly, hear the lynchers: "That's the part we most enjoy!
Tell it out in all the nation how we killed a Negro boy!"

Savage mob a Negro's chasing, and to catch him must not fail;
If it does, another's taken, there to force from him the tale
Where the fleeing man is hiding; if the facts he cannot raise,
Though his innocence protesting, for the same by death he pays.

"'Tis a Negro's blood we're craving; such will have at any cost;
We must lynch the one in keeping, for the other one is lost!"
This they say, and when they're questioned answer like this is the why,
"To the race at large a warning here a Negro man shall die!"

O, how brave the Southern white man when, a hundred men to one,
Lynch a lone, defenceless Negro, when each lyncher has a gun.
If at midnight or the noonday, the result is all the same,
Law is powerless to hinder, and the nation shares the blame.

Lynchers go into the Senate and their savagery uphold,
How they shoot and butcher Negroes is the story that is told.
Guns and ropes they have in plenty, and, if necessary, will
Use them on an office holder, such a Negro they must kill.

How they clamor for the Philippines and Cubans far away,
While a worse thing is transpiring in this country every day.
In the eyes of such law-breakers lives a beam of greatest size,
That will hinder all the pulling of the mote from others' eyes.

Are the candidates for lynching always found among the men?
No, the fiends of human torture lynch a woman now and then.
Yea, the Spanish Inquisition insignificant will pale,
When compared with such atrocities that in the South prevail!

'Tis a blot on Christian manhood time, itself, cannot erase;
Human blood upon the conscience centuries cannot efface.
Simply to suspect a Negro is sufficient for the band,
He must die without a hearing, in a boasted gospel land.

Sowing antedates the reaping, and the nation should beware,
That the sowers to the wind will reap the whirlwind everywhere.
Hark the cry! the blood of Negroes cries for vengeance from the dust!
How I tremble for the nation when I think that God is just!