I was sick -- sick unto death with the long agony
And when they at length unbound me, and I was permitting to sit
I felt that my sense were leaving me
The sentence -- the dread sentence of death -- was
The last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears
After that, the sound of the inquisitorial
Voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum
It conveyed to me,
To my soul the idea of revolution -- perhaps from
Its association in fancy with the burr of a mull wheel
This only for a brief period
For presently I heard no more
Yet, for a while, I saw
But with how terrible an exaggeration!
I saw the lips of the black-robed judges
They appeared to em white -- whiter that the sheet upon
Which I trace there word -- and thin even to grotesqueness
Thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness --
Of immoveable resolution -- of stern contempt of human torture