Inquisitor

I WAS sick -- sick unto death with the long agony;
And when they at length unbound me, and I was permitting to sit
I felt that my sense were leaving me
The sentence -- the dread sentence of death -- was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears
After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum
It conveyed to me, to my soul the idea of revolution -- perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mull wheel
This only for a brief period;
For presently I heard no more
Yet, for a while, I saw;
But with how terrible an exaggeration!
I saw the lips of the black-robed judges
They appeared to em white -- whiter that the sheet upon which I trace there word -- and thin even to grotesqueness;
Thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness -- of immoveable resolution -- of stern contempt of human torture