Men, brother men, that after us yet live, <br />Let not your hearts too hard against us be; <br />For if some pity of us poor men ye give, <br />The sooner God shall take of you pity. <br />Here are we five or six strung up, you see, <br />And here the flesh that all too well we fed <br />Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred, <br />And we the bones grow dust and ash withal; <br />Let no man laugh at us discomforted, <br />But pray to God that he forgive us all. <br /> <br /> <br />If we call on you, brothers, to forgive, <br />Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we <br />Were slain by law; ye know that all alive <br />Have not wit alway to walk righteously; <br />Make therefore intercession heartily <br />With him that of a virgin's womb was bred, <br />That his grace be not as a dry well-head <br />For us, nor let hell's thunder on us fall; <br />We are dead, let no man harry or vex us dead, <br />But pray to God that he forgive us all. <br /> <br /> <br />The rain has washed and laundered us all five, <br />And the sun dried and blackened; yea, perdie, <br />Ravens and pies with beaks that rend and rive <br />Have dug our eyes out, and plucked off for fee <br />Our beards and eyebrows; never are we free, <br />Not once, to rest; but here and there still sped, <br />Drive at its wild will by the wind's change led, <br />More pecked of birds than fruits on garden-wall; <br />Men, for God's love, let no gibe here be said, <br />But pray to God that he forgive us all. <br /> <br /> <br />Prince Jesus, that of all art lord and head, <br />Keep us, that hell be not our bitter bed; <br />We have nought to do in such a master's hall. <br />Be not ye therefore of our fellowhead, <br />But pray to God that he forgive us all.<br /><br />Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-epitaph-in-form-of-a-ballad-which-villon-made-for-himself-and-his-comrades-expecting-to-be-hanged-along-with-them/
