Then what of those
Whose punishment was such they
Never lived to carry out their crimes?
Children, say,
More than whose fingers were held
For more than a second in more than
The flame of a candle;
Though not exclusively children.
(No need to draw a picture for you:
The chamber, the instruments, the torture;
Forget the unimaginable, the
Imaginable suffices for present purposes.)
If the other was hell
Then what is this? -
There are gradations of Hades
Like the Civil Service
Whereby the first is paradise
Compared with the last;
And heaven is where we are
When we think of where we might have been.
(Except that when we think,
We are in hell.)
cassey wolsh
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/second-part-of-the-poem/
