Pardon

Wilkes Booth-April 26, 1865

Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath

            it was uttered,

                        Now thou art cold;

Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose

            close muttered,

                        Loosen their hold.

Death brings atonement; he did that whereof ye

            accuse him,—

                        Murder accurst;

But, from that crisis of crime in which Satan did

            lose him,

                        Suffered the worst.

Harshly the red dawn arose on a deed of his doing,

                        Never to mend;

But harsher days he wore out in the bitter pursuing

                        And the wild end.

So lift the pale flag of truce, wrap those mysteries

            round him,

                        In whose avail

Madness that moved, and the swift retribution that

            found him,

                        Falter and fail.

So the soft purples that quiet the heavens with

            mourning,

                        Willing to fall,

Lend him one fold, his illustrious victim adorning

                        With wider pall.

Back to the cross, where the Saviour uplifted in

            Dying

                        Bade all souls live,

Turns the rest bosom of Nature, his mother, low

            sighing, 

                        Greatest, forgive!