Beau
Gus
(Sonnet
response to anti-death-penalty
protest at the poem 'An Asses' Law')
Had there not been a penalty of death
And had that payment not been God's design,
No man had ever drawn eternal breath
By intercession of the Lamb divine.
Though Christ was there to perish in our stead,
Another hung his bleeding side beside
Whom up to Paradise our Savior led
That very day, for ever to reside.
The punishment of death was first declared
When God strolled in the garden.
Very few
Escape the sentence as Elijah, spared
When in the fire-winged chariot he flew.
I merely pressed the verdict, not the sentence,
Yet what forgiveness flows where no repentance?
May 2001
|
