He did not wear his scarlet coat
For blood and wine are red
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead
The poor dead woman whom he loved
And murdered in her bed

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby gray;
A cricket cap was on his head
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So 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 drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by

I walked, with other souls in pain
Within another ring
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing
When a voice behind me whispered low
"That fellow's got to swing."
Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain
My pain I could not feel

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word
The coward does it with a kiss
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use 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 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 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