Ballad of Jeremiah Avershaw

ONE Jeremiah Avershaw
In seventeen hundred and seventy-five
Was called to forfeit under the law
His flimsy right to stay alive.

They brought him in an open cart
To Kensington, on his last day;
Behind it followed many a man
He’d robbed upon the king’s highway,

And many a girl who cursed his name,
His voice, his look, his fervent lies,
And here and there a child who stared
With Jeremiah’s own black eyes.

He stood up in the lurching cart
Straight as a tree, a likely youth,
Without a button on his shirt,
And with a flower in his mouth.

The hanging-hill at Kensington
Was loud with people when he came.
They milled and surged at sight of him:
Said Avershaw, ‘ Ah, such is fame! ’

His scaffold scowled against the sky,
His hangman waited, sombre-clad.
The prisoner cried, ‘Yon dolorous
Dark figure almost makes me sad! ’

He strode the steps and faced the throng.
‘All London here to watch me leave,
Fine weather for my famous ride, —
And why should that good fellow grieve?’

Without a button or a friend
But sunlight on him, and a gay
Rose in his mouth, he turned to take
The last curve of the king’s highway.

But first, for those whom he had robbed
Of gold and honor, peace and power,
To pay his monstrous debt in full,
Laughing he flung his scarlet flower. . . .

And sent them home in wonder, more
Afraid than ever of the Law, —
But less afraid of Death because
Of Jeremiah Avershaw.