For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt <br />Composed in the Tower before his execution <br />These moving verses, and being brought at that time <br />Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus: <br />"I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime." <br /> <br />Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible, <br />The sack of gunpowder failing to ignite. <br />His legs were blistered sticks on which the black sap <br />Bubbled and burst as he howled for the Kindly Light. <br /> <br />And that was but one, and by no means one of he worst; <br />Permitted at least his pitiful dignity; <br />And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ, <br />That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility. <br /> <br />We move now to outside a German wood. <br />Three men are there commanded to dig a hole <br />In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down <br />And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole. <br /> <br />Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill <br />Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse. <br />A Luger settled back deeply in its glove. <br />He was ordered to change places with the Jews. <br /> <br />Much casual death had drained away their souls. <br />The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin. <br />When only the head was exposed the order came <br />To dig him out again and to get back in. <br /> <br />No light, no light in the blue Polish eye. <br />When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth. <br />The Luger hovered lightly in its glove. <br />He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death. <br /> <br />No prayers or incense rose up in those hours <br />Which grew to be years, and every day came mute <br />Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air, <br />And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.<br /><br />Anthony Evan Hecht<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/more-light-more-light/
