Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UNDER SENTENCE, by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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First Line: Off! Off! No treacherous priest for me!
Last Line: Fair chance for all to see me die!
Subject(s): Capital Punishment; Hanging; Executions; Death Penalty


PLACE -- Scotland. TIME -- Thirteenth Century.

OFF! off! No treacherous priest for me!
What's Heaven? what's Hell? Eternity!
It hath no meaning to mine ear,
Unless ---- Stay, father! Canst thou swear
By holy Rood, that I shall meet
Him there, whose crime made murder sweet?
Him whose black soul I've hurled before?
He's gone! How cold my dungeon floor!
And the rack wrenches still! This hand,
Which stiffened to a fire-hot band
Of steel, crushing his base breath out,
They've foully mangled! See that gout
Of blood there -- there, too! What care I?
It did its work well: let it lie!

I'd give ten mortal lives, I trow,
As full of sweets as mine of woe,
To feel that quivering throat once more;
To view the blue-tinged, strangling gore
Spout from his lips! To watch the dim
Film o'er those cruel eyeballs swim,
And the black anguish of his stare,
Dashed blind with horror! Lords! beware
Much trifling! We are dogs, ye ken,
Who yet may rise, and smite like men.

What's this? Ah, yes! the flower I took
From her! I think her dying look
Baptized it, for it keeps so fair.
I wonder if they decked her hair
With other flowers like this, ere yet
They lowered her beauty to the wet,
Dark mould? If maiden dust to flowers
(Some say so) turns, not all the bowers
This spring shall warm will equal those
To blossom from her pure repose!

My nuptial night! God's blood! what right
Had I to nuptials? To the bright
Keen joy that burns on wedded lips?
My life-star could not break the eclipse
Wherein 'twas born! So that dark doom
Which hounds me to a shameful tomb,
Ordained that the fiend's trick they used
Should trap me! Faith, love, peace abused,
I woke to find my heart bereft
Of its one treasure! What was left?
What, but that mandate Vengeance, hissed
With hot tongue thro' a seething mist
Of passion; the fierce mandate, "Kill?"
Aye! but she, too, lay blanched and still.

Blanched on the couch I dreamed would be
My wedding couch! Oh, infamy!
His outrage smote her to the heart;
It crashed the gates of life apart,
Where through her shuddering soul took flight!
But ere the death-dew dimmed her sight,
She gave me, as I said, this flower,
And -- one long smile! To my last hour
I've shrined her smile! If, if somewhere
There be a heaven, benign and fair,
Its saints, I feel, must smile so there!

Dread God! couldst thou have marked my wrong,
Yet sheathed thy lightning? I was strong
And lusty as the hillside roe;
Could wield the brand and bend the bow
So deftly, that his lordship deigned
To show me favor! Was it feigned?
I know not! His last kindness took
A strange shape truly; for it shook
My hopes to atoms! Yet he fell
Prone with them! Shall we meet in hell?

I ask again. Ha! if we do
And there's a single nerve, or thew,
Or muscle left to naked soul,
I'll strangle him once more; enroll
My ruthless arms round breast and throat,
And wring from out his gorge that note
Of palsied fear! I'll do 't, tho' all
The devils should pull me back, and call
Fresh torments on my anguished head:
Doubtless they'll take his part instead.

Of mine, being devils, and he the worst;
A prince amongst their tribes accurst
By this time; for a month has sped,
Beshrew me, since he joined the dead,
The damned dead! Full time I trow,
For all the bounds of hell to know
That Satan's rivalled! Hark without!
The gathering tramp, the approaching shout
Of thousands! Well, their scaffold's high;
Fair chance for all to see me die!





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