Summary
The speaker depicts the burning of the flames on the cross as well as the departure of the men in white. They say once again that this is a story they tell every year.
Analysis
The last two stanzas of the poem repeat earlier scenes while introducing small details that add emotional depth. While these sections contain very little new material, they significantly highlight the speaker's fear, further revealing their inability to ignore and repress this memory. As the pieces of the scene come together, the speaker's true feelings about this story become clear.
In the fourth stanza, the speaker opens with a variation on a line from the previous stanza: "It seemed the angels had gathered, white men in their gowns." This line alters "a few men gathered, white as angels in their gowns," and places emphasis on the fact that they were white. This makes it more apparent that this was an act of hate, carried out by white men to terrorize a Black community. This slight shift also gives the image more menace. Where before these men seemed only like angels, now there is clearly more to what they are doing. The speaker goes on to say that "When they were done, they left quietly. No one came," which suggests that they avoided disaster, despite the fear instilled by this display. This is another example of the speaker trying to repress the severity of the scene, dismissing it in the same way they might a nightmare or a scary story. However, they then reuse the line about the trembling wicks of the hurricane lamps, stating, "by morning the flames had all dimmed." It becomes fairly obvious that this was a cross burning, as the speaker specifically says that "all" of the flames had dimmed, referencing both their lanterns and the flames of the cross. This functions in the same manner as the lines about the charred grass, signaling what happened without actually coming forward and saying it outright.
The final stanza of the poem is made up of additional repetitions. The first two lines recycle the speaker's other minimizing language about the incident: "When they were done, the men left quietly. No one came. / Nothing really happened." The understatement of these lines is very clear. Stating that "no one came" and "nothing really happened" is obviously untrue after the speaker has just recounted this entire story to the reader. Once again, it feels like the dismissal of a ghost story, as the speaker tries to pretend that this wasn't real. However, the seriousness of the situation reappears in the final two lines: "By morning all the flames had dimmed. / We tell the story every year." By acknowledging the reality of the flames and restating that this story is continually told, the speaker is tacitly acknowledging that this is not just a scary story; it is a deeply haunting memory. The poem faithfully captures the way in which a traumatized community holds on to a story like this one, unable to move past the fear it left behind.
