Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor

Into an empty space.
He does not sit with silent men

Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,

And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob

The prison of its prey.
He does not wake at dawn to see

Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,

The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,

With the yellow face of Doom.
He does not rise in piteous haste

To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,

and notes
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,

Fingering a watch whose little ticks
Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickeningthirst
That sands one's throat, before

The hangman with his gardener's gloves
Slips through the padded door,

And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,

Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,

Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass:

He does not pray with lips of clay
For his agony to pass;

Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.

II
Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,

In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully" target="_blank" title="ad.渴望地；不满足地">wistfully at the day.
I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed

Its ravelled fleeces by.
He did not wring his hands, as do

Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope

In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,

And drank the morning air.
He did not wring his hands nor weep,

Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held

Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun

As though it had been wine!
And I and all the souls in pain,

Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done

A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze

The man who had to swing.
And strange it was to see him pass

With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look

So wistfully" target="_blank" title="ad.渴望地；不满足地">wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he

Had such a debt to pay.
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves

That in the springtime shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,

With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die

Before it bears its fruit!
The loftiest place is that seat of grace

For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band

Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer's collar take

His last look at the sky?
It is sweet to dance to violins

When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes

Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet

To dance upon the air!
So with curious eyes and sick surmise

We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us

Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell

His sightless soul may stray.
At last the dead man walked no more

Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up

In the black dock's dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face

In God's sweet world again.
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm

We had crossed each other's way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,

We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,

But in the shameful day.
A prison wall was round us both,

Two outcast men we were:
The world had thrust us from its heart,

And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin

Had caught us in its snare.
III

In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,

So it was there he took the air
Beneath the leaden sky,

And by each side a Warder walked,
For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;

Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;

Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
The Regulations Act:

The Doctor said that Death was but
A scientific fact:

And twice a day the Chaplain called,
And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
And drank his quart of beer:

His soul was resolute, and held
No hiding-place for fear;

He often said that he was glad
The hangman's hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
No Warder dared to ask:

For he to whom a watcher's doom
Is given as his task,

Must set a lock upon his lips,
And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
To comfort or console:

And what should Human Pity do
Pent up in Murderers' Hole?

What word of grace in such a place
Could help a brother's soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fools' Parade!

We did not care: we knew we were
The Devil's Own Brigade:

And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;

We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:

And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:

We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:

But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:

And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,

Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;

The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:

And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
On Death and Dread and Doom:

The hangman, with his little bag,
Went shuffling through the gloom:

And each man trembled as he crept
Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
Were full of forms of Fear,

And up and down the iron town
Stole feet we could not hear,

And through the bars that hide the stars
White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
In a pleasant meadow-land,

The watchers watched him as he slept,

• sheriff [´ʃerif] n.郡长；行政长官 (初中英语单词)
• governor [´gʌvənə] n.总督；州长 (初中英语单词)
• horrible [´hɔrəbəl] a.可怕的；恐怖的 (初中英语单词)
• throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
• thirst [θə:st] n.渴，口渴；渴望 (初中英语单词)
• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
• delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
• standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
• dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
• thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
• scientific [,saiən´tifik] a.科学(上)的 (初中英语单词)
• foremost [´fɔ:məust] a.最重要的；最先的 (高中英语单词)
• throng [θrɔŋ] n.群众 v.拥挤；群集 (高中英语单词)
• coffin [´kɔfin] n.棺材，柩 (高中英语单词)
• hideous [´hidiəs] a.丑陋的，可怕的 (高中英语单词)
• shabby [´ʃæbi] a.(衣服)破旧的 (高中英语单词)
• cricket [´krikit] n.蟋蟀；板球 (高中英语单词)
• anguish [´æŋgwiʃ] n.(极度的)痛苦；苦恼 (高中英语单词)
• chaplain [´tʃæplin] n.本堂神父；专职教士 (英语四级单词)
• sickening [´sikəniŋ, ´sikniŋ] a.引起疾病的 (英语四级单词)
• wistful [´wistfəl] a.渴望的；不满足的 (英语四级单词)
• healthful [´helθfəl] a.卫生的，有益健康的 (英语四级单词)
• springtime [´spriŋtaim] n.春季；青春期 (英语四级单词)
• nimble [´nimbəl] a.敏捷的；聪明的 (英语四级单词)
• shameful [´ʃeimfəl] a.可耻的；猥亵的 (英语四级单词)
• resolute [´rezəlu:t] a.坚决的；不屈不挠的 (英语四级单词)
• wistfully [´wistfuli] ad.渴望地；不满足地 (英语六级单词)