Explore "The Ballad of Justifiable Homicide" by Franklin P. Adams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They brought to me his mangled corpse / And I feared lest I should swing.
"O tell me, tell me, -- and make it brief -- / Why hast thou done this thing?
"Had this man robbed the starving poor / Or lived a gunman's life, / Had he set fire to cottages, / Or run off with thy wife?"
"He hath not robbed the starving poor, / Nor lived a gunman's life; / He hath set fire to no cottage, / Nor run off with my wife.
"Ye ask me such a question that / It now my lips unlocks: / I learned he was the man who planned / The second balcony box."
The jury pondered never an hour, / They thought not even a little, / But handed in unanimously / A verdict of acquittal.