Down – steadily down it
crept.
The pendulum
hanging from a crescent pit
A
death-condemned, in there stepped
Like a heap of
spirits out of frenzy knit.
Down –
steadily down it crept.
The man
shivering, shrieked and fell.
For hours or
days maybe slept;
But still
remained in that one cell.
Down unceasingly
towards descent.
How much he
wished it ceased to sink;
But it swept and
swept
Till his sanity
is wrecked
Till the axe
almost dwelt
In the poor man’s
chest.
“Death, oh death! Come to me”, he cried.
“Peace I’ve been
denied.
I am a restless
mind, the impatient kind.
Death, oh death!
Come to me”, he cried.
Then reason he
gained ;
“Glistening pit
with my own blood stained?
By the name of
Horror, I will not faint
Or dread your
angles of iron made. “
He glared into
the ceiling.
Hell it was
seeming.
No escape, no
fleeing.
In tears he
burst weeping.
A thousand deaths;
but not this one.
He was rushing
to the end, and nothing could be done.
A long shrill scream,
his last breaths outran.
Then screams
other than his, he heard.
Trumpets like
thunder which did sunder
The fiery walls
pressing him under
The pendulum now
existing even in his asylum,
In his dreams and his nightmarish delirium.
