Poetry Mash-Up #1

Hey guys! Today marks the beginning of something that I call "Poetry Mash-Ups," where I will mash two famous poems together like a song mash-up. Hope you like it!

Poetry Mash-up #1:

"The Hangman" by Maurice Ogden

"The Tiger" by William Blake

Into our town the Hangman came

Smelling of gold and blood and flame

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright

In the forests of the night

And he paced our bricks with a diffident air

And built his frame in the courthouse square

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side

Only as wide as the door was wide

A frame as tall or a little more

As the capping sill of the courthouse door

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,

Who the criminal? What the crime?

That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist

Of knotted hemp in his busy fist

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

And innocent though we were, with dread,

We passed those eyes of buckshot lead:

Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he

For whom you raise the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,

And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:

"He who serves me best," said he,

"Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree."

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

And he stepped down, and laid his hand

On a man who came from another land.

And we breathed again, for another's grief

At the Hangman's hand was our relief.

And the gallows-tree on the courthouse lawn

By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.

So we gave him way, and no one spoke,

Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright!

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

could frame thy fearful symmetry?

c. Taylor Ward 2013. All rights reserved.