YE heavens, pray for mercy on my head! If God abides in you, and if a way To Him exists, which yet I have not found, Do you my prayers unto His ear convey! For me, my heart is dead, and no more prayers Are on my lips, for refuge against wrong. My strength is gone, and there is no more hope. How long must we endure, how long, how long? Headsman, here is an axe, arise and slay! Behead me like a dog; so let it be! You have an arm, an instrument of death, And all the world a scaffold is to me. Then let red blood, the blood of old and young, Besprinkle your red coat with ruddy gore, So that the savage and ensanguined stain Shall not be wiped from it forevermore. Cursed be he who for revenge cries out! For slaying guileless babes a vengeance meet Satan himself has never yet devised. Then let our blood, poured out beneath your feet, Sink penetrating to earth's lowest depths; Let blood of those who perished without blame Sap and destroy the earth's foundations old— The bases deep of wickedness and shame. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BURNING OF THE TEMPLE by ISAAC ROSENBERG SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD by WALT WHITMAN AEOLIAN HARP (1) by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH: BOOK 1. AIR by JOHN ARMSTRONG THE WHITE ROAD UP ATHIRT THE HILL by WILLIAM BARNES THE TITANIC by KATHARINE LEE BATES FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SORROW by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |