There was a group outside the prison gate, Waiting to hear them ring the passing bell, Waiting as empty people always wait For the strong toxic of another’s hell. And mother stood there, too, not seeing well, Praying through tears to let His will be done, And not to hide His mercy from her son. Talk in the little group was passing quick. ’It’s nothing now to what it was, to watch.’ ’Poor wretched kid, I bet he’s feeling sick.’ ’Eh? What d’you say, chaps? Someone got a match?’ ’They draw a bolt and drop you down a hatch And break your neck, whereas they used to strangle In olden times, when you could see them dangle.’ Some one said, ’Off hats’ when the bell began. Mother was whimpering now upon her knees. A broken ringing like a beaten pan It sent the sparrows wavering to the trees. The wall-top grasses whickered in the breeze, The broken ringing clanged, clattered and clanged As though men’s bees were swarming, not men hanged. Now certain Justice with the pitiless knife. The white sick chaplain snuffling at the nose. ’I am the resurrection and the life.’ The bell still clangs, the small procession goes, The prison warders ready ranged in rows. ’Now, Gurney, come, my dear; it’s time,’ they said. And ninety seconds later he was dead. Some of life’s sad ones are too strong to die, Grief doesn’t kill them as it kills the weak, Sorrow is not for those who sit and cry Lapped in the love of turning t’other cheek, But for the noble souls austere and bleak Who have had the bitter dose and drained the cup And wait for Death face fronted, standing up. As the last man upon the sinking ship, Seeing the brine creep brightly on the deck, Hearing aloft the slatting topsails rip, Ripping to rags among the topmast’s wreck, Yet hoists the new red ensign without speck, That she, so fair, may sink with colours flying, So the old widowed mother kept from dying. She tottered home, back to the little room, It was all over for her, but for life; She drew the blinds, and trembled in the gloom; ’I sat here thus when I was wedded wife; Sorrow sometimes, and joy; but always strife. Struggle to live except just at the last, O God, I thank Thee for the mercies past. Harry, my man, when we were courting; eh... The April morning up the Cony-gree. How grand he looked upon our wedding day. "I wish we’d had the bells," he said to me; And we’d the moon that evening, I and he, And dew come wet, oh, I remember how, And we come home to where I’m sitting now. And he lay dead here, and his son was born here; He never saw his son, his little Jim. And now I’m all alone here, left to mourn here, And there are all his clothes, but never him. He’s down under the prison in the dim, With quicklime working on him to the bone, The flesh I made with many and many a groan.