I
The Gibbet
(Derived from Aloysius Bertrand)
OH, do I hear the night-raped wind
Who screams in travail, do I hear
The blunt ropes of the gibbet grind,
The hanged man’s writhing sigh so drear?
Oh, can it be some cricket’s song
Vibrating shrill amongst the weeds
And sterile moss? throughout the long
Finned languid hours when summer bleeds
Outstretched and pallid on a bier.
Oh, can it be some spot-swift fly
Who winds his horn round each deaf ear?
Some beetle plucking stealthily
A morsel of corrupting flesh,
A trailing wisp, a bleeding hair,
Until his spirit, fed and fresh,
Will bid him frisk upon the air?
Oh, can it be some spider squat
Who sings and sows at half an ell
Of satin, for a new cravat
To deck his strangled throat in Hell?
It is the clock which tinkles down
The hour to the crumbling town.
It is a hanged man’s carcass spun
With crimson by the setting sun.