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Howard Nemerov - The Murder Of William Remington
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It is true, that even in the best-run state 
Such things will happen; it is true, 
What’s done is done. The law, whereby we hate 
Our hatred, sees no fire in the flue 
But by the smoke, and not for thought alone 
It punishes, but for the thing that’s done. 


And yet there is the horror of the fact, 
Though we knew not the man. To die in jail, 
To be beaten to death, to know the act 
Of personal fury before the eyes can fail 
And the man die against the cold last wall 
Of the lonely world—and neither is that all: 


There is the terror too of each man’s thought, 
That knows not, but must quietly suspect 
His neighbor, friend, or self of being taught 
To take an attitude merely correct; 
Being frightened of his own cold image in 
The glass of government, and his own sin, 


Frightened lest senate house and prison wall 
Be quarried of one stone, lest righteous and high 
Look faintly smiling down and seem to call 
A crime the welcome chance of liberty, 
And any man an outlaw who aggrieves 
The patriotism of a pair of thieves.
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