Poem by John Watkins

Extract from the Play of John Frost

		(Scene, A dungeon —Frost reading)

FROST. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”  
	From whom shall they obtain it? — not from man!
	Man curses man; cruel e’en in his mercy.
	Me, merciful, they recommend to mercy,
	And what do I obtain? — not that, nor justice!
	I sought for mercy for the suffring poor,
	And am condem’d for’t — aye, for that
	I’m sentenc’d to be hang’d, be drawn, and quarter’d —
	My sever’d limbs to be disposed of   — how?
	Sold, strewn, or cook’d, as pleases our good Queen!
	To pity poor men’s woes is treason now.
	The loyal laugh at them, are thank’d and knighted.
	God, thou art merciful! Have mercy on me!
	On those who have more need of it than I,
	Because they’ve none on me, nor on the poor.
	Oh, God! if ‘tis expedient one man perish
	For thy poor people’s sake, I’ll be that man:
	If I have erred, ‘twas with no bad intent; 
	But strictest judgment they have dealt on me. 
	Oh may my death atone my sins in life. 
	Oh, hear my prayer, Oh God! And pardon me.

				(Enter Jailor)

JAILOR. Her Majesty most graciously has mercy —
	She will not hang you, but transport you, Sir.
FROST.  Transport me!
	I’d rather die — I’d rather far be hang’d.
JAILOR. At your pleasure, Sir;
	But you will be transported, Sir — not hang’d. 
	I thought you would have liked to hear it, Sir.

				(Exit Jailor.)

FROST (solus)
	Transported! — ’tis to drag on death alive. 
	Such mercy is the worst of cruelty. 
	The fiends alone can call it mercy. 
	Oh, ’tis sardonic! transport! aye, indeed! 
	Transport in penal flames! — transported, ha! 
	They’ll next call hell, — heaven — devils, too. 
	They’ll christen angels — so, indeed, they are, 
	Compar’d with those who make their hell of England. 
	Alas for me! — what shall a good man do? 
	Vice reigns on earth and virtue is her victim. 
	They seiz’d me, immured me —the very priests, 
	That pray God’s pity on poor prisoners, 
	Made me a prisoner — was’t to pray for me? 
	I was betray’d by my own counsellors, 
	And men, I saved, witness’d against me falsely, 
	Condemn’d their friend to shambles to be slaughter’d 
	More like a beast for market than a man. 
	And now Victoria’s mercy for me is —
	What? — banishment to earth’s remotest bounds, 
	Far out of hearing of redress, or pity —
	There to be chain’d with felons ’neath the sun, 
	A keeper o’er me with a whip of wire, 
	And when I groan with unhabitual toil, 
	Or faint with thirst, and hunger, or disease,
	To have the whip scourge off my blistered skin,
	And be worse tortur’d for my cries and shrieks. 
	Nay, when worn nature sinks in torpid sleep, 
	And dreams of former life stir thoughts of home, 
	To be awak’d and goaded to my doom, — 
	I whose whole course of life hath run contrary, 
	So that my fate will make itself more felt. 
	I to spend life’s latter days thus — thus nameless, 
	It is too dreadful for my mind to bear, 
	How can my body then? — it must not be! 
	They cannot mean it, sure — a moment so — 
	With such companions and such overseers, 
	In such an irresponsive wilderness, 
	Where man is authoriz’d to torture man, 
	And so exults in his most savage power 
	That wildest beasts grow tame and lose their terrors 
	Compar’d with him, arm’d with his racking engines, 
	A moment of such life were like whole years. 
	And must I go with memory and spend 
	The last grey remnant of my being thus? 
	I shall go mad, or worse, become a fiend — 
	And this they call their mercy — royal mercy! 
	Be merciful, indeed, and give me death — 
	Oh, let me die while yet I am a man — 
	Give me some chance of leaving earth for heaven.

1. Lines on Shell, Killed at Newport
2. The Corn Laws and Emigration

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