The Black Christ & Other Poems/Ultima Verba
Ultima Verba
NOT being in my coffin, yet I know
What suffocations crowd their breath who go
Through some mischance alive into the grave;
Not having any wound at all to shout
Belief to Thomas who must see or doubt,
I feel my life blood ebbing wave on wave.
What suffocations crowd their breath who go
Through some mischance alive into the grave;
Not having any wound at all to shout
Belief to Thomas who must see or doubt,
I feel my life blood ebbing wave on wave.
And yet this knowledge cannot summon strength
To rend apart the life-impaling length
Of these strong boards that hold my body down;
There is no cloth, no cool and radiant stuff
(Save fashioned by your hand) healing enough
To staunch this thin red flow in which I drown.
To rend apart the life-impaling length
Of these strong boards that hold my body down;
There is no cloth, no cool and radiant stuff
(Save fashioned by your hand) healing enough
To staunch this thin red flow in which I drown.
I am as one knowing what day he dies,
Who looks in vain for mercy into eyes
No glints of pity shade, no pardons stir,
And thinks, "Although the trap by which I span
This world and that another springs, this man
Is both my judge and executioner."
Who looks in vain for mercy into eyes
No glints of pity shade, no pardons stir,
And thinks, "Although the trap by which I span
This world and that another springs, this man
Is both my judge and executioner."