a knife, because
                 The dead so soon grow cold.

               Some love too little, some too long,
                 Some sell, and others buy;
               Some do the deed with many tears,
                 And some without a sigh:
               For each man kills the thing he loves,
                 Yet each man does not die.

               He does not die a death of shame
                 On a day of dark disgrace,
               Nor have a noose about his neck,
                 Nor a cloth upon his face,
               Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
                 Into an empty place

               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.

               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.