In Judgement Poem by Ima Ryma

The crowd had gathered in the square.
They came to watch a young man die.
The sherriff brought the killer there -
To the gallows, to hang him high.
At his courthouse window he stood.
The Judge watched the sentence below,
Carried out as he knew it should.
It was the law that it be so.
A prayer was muttered by the priest.
The trapdoor swung; the rope snapped tight.
All life within the young man ceased.
The Judge's eyes closed at the sight.

The Judge had seen the justice done -
The hanging of his only son.