Page:The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1904).djvu/22

 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 sickening thirst
 * 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.

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