Poetry Archives

Being a gaoler I’m supposed
          To be a hard-boiled guy;
Yet never prison walls enclosed
          A kinder soul than I:
Passing my charges precious pills
          To end their ills.

And if in gentle sleep they die,
          And pass to pleasant peace,
No one suspects that it is I
          Who gave them their release:
No matter what the Doctor thinks,
          The Warden winks.

A lifer’s is a fearful fate;
          It wrings the heart of me.
And what a saving to the State
          A sudden death must be!
Doomed men should have the legal right
          To end their plight.

And so my veronel they take,
          And bid goodbye to pain;
And sleep, and never, never wake
          To living hell again:
Oh call me curst or call me blest,—
          I give them rest.