No Neck-Tie Party
A prisoner speaks:
Majority of twenty—three,
I face the Judge with joy and glee;
For am I not a lucky chap —
No more hanging, no more cap;
A “lifer,” yes, but well I know
In fifteen years they’ll let me go;
For I’ll be pious in my prison,
Sing with gusto: Christ Is Risen;
Serve the hymn—books out on Sunday,
Sweep the chapel clean on Monday:
Such a model lag I’ll be
In fifteen years they’ll set me free.
Majority of twenty three,
You’ve helped me cheat the gallows tree.
I’m twenty now, at thirty—five
How I will laugh to be alive!
To leap into the world again
And bless the fools miscalled “humane,”
Who say the gibbet’s wrong and so
At thirty—five they let me go,
Tat I may sail the across the sea
A killer unsuspect and free,
To change my name, to darkly thrive
By hook or crook at thirty—five.
O silent dark and beastly wood
Where with my bloodied hands I stood!
O piteous child I raped and slew!
Had she been yours, would you and you
Have pardoned me and set me free,
Majority of twenty—three?
Yet by your solemn vote you willed
I shall not die though I have killed;
Although I did no mercy show,
In mercy you will let me go. . . .
That he who kills and does not pay
May live to kill another day.
*By a majority of twenty—three the House of Commons
voted the abolition of the death penalty.
Other works by Robert W. Service...
