The Tree On Gibbet Hill Poem by Richard Trembath

The Tree On Gibbet Hill



Beneath your dying, splintered boughs
'Midst rocks the horses graze,
Your broken, withered limbs give not
A hint of earlier days,
Days when you bore your dreadful fruit,
When human life you craved,
When haunted, hell-bound sinners you
Denied the very grave.

The days when you defiant stood,
A warning to the land,
Of Mankind's inhumanity
And Death's swift icy hand;
The ghost of one such tortured soul
They say lurks with you still
And curses those who scorn the dead
Who hung on Gibbet Hill.

But time is pass'd, men's ways are changed
And your dread days are o'er,
You stand, a broken monument
To times that are no more;
Perhaps when your time comes and you
Return unto the earth,
Your passing will release the souls
And grant them second birth.

The highwayman, the murderer,
The fool, the thief, the cheat,
Who rotted on your boughs denied
The sinner's crimson sheet,
Denied in death the dignity
Of but a pauper's hole,
Perhaps your death at last will grant
Repose unto his soul.

And you will be a legend, voiceless,
Lingering in the night,
With no man left to tell your tale
And naught to mark your site.
The land shall know tranquility,
The lost soul's voice be still,
As horses yet unborn graze 'midst
The rocks on Gibbet Hill.

Thursday, September 22, 2011
Topic(s) of this poem: life and death
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Richard Trembath

Richard Trembath

Richmond, Victoria, Australia
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