Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HANGMAN'S NOOSE ON EXHIBIT, by EDWARD EVERETT ROLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HANGMAN'S NOOSE ON EXHIBIT, by                    
First Line: Did the doomed man know
Last Line: And given him another hour of breath?
Subject(s): Capital Punishment; Hanging; Executions; Death Penalty


Did the doomed man know
That I should be shelved
Where the meanest footpad's gun
Would glance at me superciliously
Down its long nose,
And where I should be
Forever stared at
By slack-jawed neurotics?

I knew that in his whirling mind
There fought for mastery
The cold cold fear of death,
And stinging, futile rage,
And incredulity
That he should have been born
To die so sordidly.

He shrank from the harsh caress
Which was all I could give
To reassure him!

How could he know that two fibres
Of my outer strand were weak,
And that I should so gladly
Have stayed ten thousand years
In the venomed glare
That beats upon this tawdry shelf
If I could have broken
And given him another hour of breath?





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