Hanging Song

Wake up John it's time to go
Come along John and don't be slow
I bring you into procession just to help me deal
With the border at my elbow and an author at
my heel
Marching in the morning down the path I
blatantly seen
I was sleeping in this garden
Am I still within my dream?
The echo of my heartbeat is the beating of a
drum
And all the earth is singing with life's sweet
hum
With violence all is silence, shuffle through it
all
The place where life is taken for the letter of
the Lord
Shake the holy water
Summon up the God
Dying's very easy
Waiting's very hard
A rope is hanging from the roof, a sight which
puzzles me
I thought that Jimmy would make the gallows
tree
But now all is revealed standing there is their
command
My feet are off the trapdoor with a rope
around my hand
And now the executioner is shaking hands with
me
"My duty I must carry out, you poor fella" says
he
A strap is tied around my feet and a bag upon
my head
And then the noose which separates the living
from the dead
Shake the holy water
Summon up the God
Dying's very easy
Waiting's very hard
Then he whispers to me "have you anything to
say?"
My mouth is dry, my throat is tight
I answered "drop away"
Silence now surrounds me, my heart is beating
on
The trapdoor hardly moves at all
My life is still my own
They sat me in the corner with my hands and
feet still bound
While the carpenter is called for and an
explanation found
The rangers walk with timbers
I hear the hangman say
"It's funny but it worked well, I tried it
yesterday"
All is pending now they say that your old days'
nearly over
Your life is good as ended but I hear their
voices waiver
Once more the bold is shaken and again I hang
in limbo
While the guards jump off the trapdoor
And my body stands on tiptoe
Shake the holy water
Summon up the God
Dying's very easy
Waiting's very hard
They stand me in the corner with my hands and
feet still tied
A warden holds onto the noose
The trapdoor opens wide
Is it magic or coincidence that keeps me on the
brink
It seems to work without me, will it kill me now
I think
Please I'm tired of living and I really want to
die
I was taken to the scalpel and I heard the
hangman cry
"I'm truly sorry, forgive these hands of mine"
He drew the bolt with a pelt of jolt
For the third and final time
My life was spared that morning because it
wasn't theirs to take
Three's the vote and four it requires for a man
to fill the stake