In ' Yard the stones are hard,                  And the dripping wall is high,
               So it was there he took the air
                 Beneath the leaden sky,
               And by each side a Warder walked,
                 For fear the man might die.
 
               Or else he sat with those who watched
                 His night and day;
               Who watched him when he rose to weep,
                 And when he to pray;
               Who watched him lest himself should rob
                 Their scaffold of its .
 
               The Governor was strong upon
                 The Regulations Act:
               The Doctor said that Death was but
                 A scientific fact:
               And twice a day the Chaplain called
                 And left a little .
 
               And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
                 And drank his quart of beer:
               His soul was , and held
                 No hiding-place for fear;
               He often said that he was glad
                 The hangman's hands were near.
 
               But why he said so strange a thing
                 No Warder dared to ask:
               For he to whom a watcher's
                 Is given as his task,
               Must set a lock upon his lips,
                 And make his face a mask.
 
               Or else he might be moved, and try
                 To comfort or console:
               And what should Human Pity do
                 Pent up in Murderers' Hole?
               What word of grace in such a place
                 Could help a brother's soul?
 
               With slouch and swing around the ring
                 We trod the Fool's Parade!
               We did not care: we knew we were
                 The Devil's Own Brigade:
               And shaven head and feet of lead
                 Make a merry masquerade.
 
               We tore the tarry rope to
                 With blunt and bleeding nails;
               We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
                 And cleaned the shining rails:
               And, rank by rank, we soaped the ,
                 And with the pails.
 
               We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
                 We turned the dusty drill:
               We banged the tins, and the ,
                 And sweated on the mill:
               But in the heart of every man
                 Terror was lying still.
 
               So still it lay that every day
                 Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
               And we forgot the bitter lot
                 That waits for fool and ,
               Till once, as we tramped in from work,
                 We passed an open grave.
 
               With yawning mouth the yellow hole
                 Gaped for a living thing;
               The very mud cried out for blood
                 To the thirsty asphalte ring:
               And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
                 Some prisoner had to swing.
 
               Right in we went, with soul intent
                 On Death and and Doom:
               The hangman, with his little bag,
                 Went through the gloom
               And each man trembled as he crept
                 Into his numbered tomb.
 
               That night the empty corridors
                 Were full of forms of Fear,
               And up and down the iron town
                 Stole feet we could not hear,
               And through the bars that hide the stars
                 White faces seemed to peer.
 
               He lay as one who lies and dreams
                 In a pleasant meadow-land,
               The watcher watched him as he slept,
                 And could not understand
               How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
                 With a hangman close at hand?
 
               But there is no sleep when men must weep
                 Who never yet have wept:
               So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
                 That endless vigil kept,
               And through each brain on hands of pain
                 Another's terror crept.
 
               Alas! it is a fearful thing
                 To feel another's !
               For, right within, the sword of Sin
                 Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
               And as molten lead were the tears we shed
                 For the blood we had not spilt.
 
               The Warders with their shoes of felt
                 Crept by each padlocked door,
               And peeped and saw, with eyes of ,
                 Grey figures on the floor,
               And wondered why men knelt to pray
                 Who never prayed before.
 
               All through the night we knelt and prayed,
                 Mad mourners of a !
               The troubled of midnight were
                 The plumes upon a hearse:
               And bitter wine upon a sponge
                 Was the savior of .
 
               The cock crew, the red cock crew,
                 But never came the day:
               And shape of Terror crouched,
                 In the corners where we lay:
               And each evil sprite that walks by night
                 Before us seemed to play.
 
    &n............