The Switch Poem by David Lewis Paget

The woman walked up to the prison gates
But the guard wouldn’t let her through,
‘We only have room for the prison inmates
There’s certainly none for you.’
‘But I need to get in, I have to get in,
My love’s to be hanged at the dawn,
If you could show pity, show pity for me,
I need one more kiss, then he’s gone! ’

‘You want dispensation, then talk to the judge,
His chambers are only next door,
He’s cold and he’s heartless, a hard man to budge,
Tell him what you’re looking for.
He came to the judgement that fastened the noose
Of death round your lover’s throat,
There’ll not be much pity to see in his eyes
As he watches your lover choke.’

She went to his chambers and knocked at his door,
He opened it up in surprise,
‘Why would you come knocking, it’s late in the hour? ’
‘Tomorrow my lover dies! ’
‘The judgement is given, it can’t be reversed,
He’s condemned by the law of the land, ’
She looked for compassion, his message was terse,
‘When he dies, it is by his own hand.’

She quailed at his hardness, went down on her knees,
‘I just need to see him once more,
I’m willing to pay with whatever you please,
I’m begging you, down on the floor.’
The judge saw his options and wickedness gleamed
In the eyes of the law of the land,
He offered an avenue by which it seemed
She’d get one more glimpse of her man.

She’d made up her mind to not shrink from the task
That she’d set herself, nor would she slip,
From offering everything that he might ask
For her man was the prow of her ship.
He took his advantage, it was as she’d feared
On the bench of his Chancery Court,
And left with a pass he had signed as he leered
At the precious few moments she’d bought.

The guard let her in where her man was condemned
And he let them alone for a while,
Her urgency stemmed from the moments they hemmed
In between both a kiss and a smile,
The guard noticed nothing amiss when she left
Her tears hidden under her hair,
Not even a glance at the prisoner in rags
Who crouched in the corner in there.

The figure they dragged to the gallows floor
Was weak and unusually soft,
The judge had been waiting to see the despair
He had caused, with the figure aloft.
Then out called the hangman, ‘it isn’t a man,
You’ve brought me a woman to hang, ’
A woman who’d already cut off her hair
And given her wig to her man.

‘Someone shall pay, ’ cried the judge in his ire,
‘I’ll not have the law over-ruled.’
‘That someone is you when the things that you do
Allow you to rape, and be fooled.’
The judge then had bellowed, ‘we’ll hang her instead, ’
And the hangman had knotted the noose,
She cried as the trap dropped, ‘My love is not dead,
And your law is of no further use.’

14 August 2015