A Supposition

The tips of the hills rise up, like curled
Waves on the verge, from Gallow Hill:
Rim on rim what a wide, round world
The man to be hanged must have looked on, till
It closed up tight in the grip of the noose.
To think that just on a day like this —
Harvest in valley, sun profuse —
Some six of one's fellows should deprive
A soul of the joy of being alive,
And watching the sun and the mountains kiss!
But what if his captors after all
Were baulked of putting their man in thrall,
And, just when they choked him, eye and breath.
Their victim were sailing out clear to death.
No longer to blink in the flashing sun.
To be in the light, in the very run.

And reach past the mountains curling rim; —
If, while the troopers were burying him,
With thought of hell and the judgment grim,
He were stretching his limbs from life's fetter-curse
To rest in the golden universe?