27.05.2007, 13:38
Capital Punishment
Think better of thy fellows – ye who dare
Stop the warm current of a brother’s heart;
‘T is not to mark the death-damp of his fear
And mortal agony, when ye shall part
The soul from its strong tenement – not this –
Not this doth call them from their secret ways,
From haunts of crime, and nature’s seats of bliss,
Toil-worn and travel-stained for many days:
No! even we, in chambers pent, like them,
Feel the wild anguish of a fellow’s pang –
The pleading of a pulse, which ye condemn,
That calls us forth as if a bugle rang.
The wronger is the wronged, such impulse lies
In every human heart when thus a brother dies.
Think better of thy fellows – ye who dare
Stop the warm current of a brother’s heart;
‘T is not to mark the death-damp of his fear
And mortal agony, when ye shall part
The soul from its strong tenement – not this –
Not this doth call them from their secret ways,
From haunts of crime, and nature’s seats of bliss,
Toil-worn and travel-stained for many days:
No! even we, in chambers pent, like them,
Feel the wild anguish of a fellow’s pang –
The pleading of a pulse, which ye condemn,
That calls us forth as if a bugle rang.
The wronger is the wronged, such impulse lies
In every human heart when thus a brother dies.