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.

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.

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.”