What am I saying? and what are you? do I came into court to the judge and the you come as a spy? Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie. lawyers. I told them my tale, God's own truth-but they killed him, they killed him for robbing the mail. They hanged him in chains for a show we had always borne a good name-35 To be hanged for a thief-and then put away-isn't that enough shame?" Dust to dust-low down-let us hide! but they set him so high That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air, But not the black heart of the lawyer who killed him and hanged him there. 40 My Willy 'ill rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment 'ill sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground. XIII They would scratch him up-they would hang him again on the cursed tree. Sin? O, yes, we are sinners, I know-let all that be, 60 And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's goodwill toward men "Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord"-let me hear it again; "Full of compassion and mercy-longsuffering." Yes, O, yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder the Savior lives but to bless. He'll never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst, 65 And the first may be last-I have heard it in church-and the last may be first. Suffering O, long-suffering-yes, as the Lord must know, Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow. Madam, I beg your pardon! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the wind The snow and the sky so bright-he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet-for hark! Nay-you can hear it yourself-it is coming-shaking the walls- 85 Willy-the moon 's in a cloud- -Goodnight. I am going. He calls. I have climbed to the snows of Age, and But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher. 201 |