Classic Poem

They got you in the end when you had grown
A little tired of questions: and your scorn,
Old Gadfly buzzing at the ox's horn,
Shot like a brilliant dagger to the bone;
They could not know, nor had they ever known,
The stark unflinching beauty you had torn
Out of the terror of thought. . . . They pressed the thorn
Against your forehead, locked your feet in stone.

Was it at twilight that the jailer said
Your cup was ready, sobbing brokenly
Like a sick child, while you approached the dead
With some cool gesture of philosophy,
Leaving to Athens your last recipe—
Two drams of hemlock and an iron bed.