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 watcher watched him as he slept,
                 And could not understand
               How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
                 With a hangman close at hand?

               But there is no sleep when men must weep
                 Who never yet have wept:
               So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
                 That endless vigil kept,
               And through each brain on hands of pain
                 Another's terror crept.

               Alas! it is a fearful thing
                 To feel another's guilt!
               For, right within, the sword of Sin
                 Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
               And as molten lead were the tears we shed
                 For the blood we had not spilt.

               The Warders with their shoes of felt
                 Crept by each padlocked door,
               And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
                 Grey figures on the floor,
               And wondered why men knelt to pray
                 Who never prayed before.

               All through the night we knelt and prayed,
                 Mad mourners of a corpse!
               The troubled plumes of midnight were
                 The plumes upon a hearse:
               And bitter wine upon a sponge
                 Was the savior of Remorse.

               The cock crew, the red cock crew,
                 But never came the day:
               And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
                 In the corners where we lay:
               And each evil sprite that walks by night
                 Before us seemed to