Classic Poem

From a distorted, withering, leafless tree,
The naked body of Iscariot swung,
'Mid rocks and stumps in ghastly terror hung;
That hideous wound in fell deformity
Wide-opening — but the soul escap'd — and free,
Tho' stain'd with curses deep, — with horrour stung
(As venom'd adders that, with hissing tongue
And swelling neck, from the bold peasant flee)
It slunk away, blacker than Death and Sin. —
But struck — and by a thunderbolt — with pain
Roaring, the tortur'd body it resum'd:
Then headlong (with his bones that clos'd him in)
Fell down into Avernus — in the chain
Of bottomless perdition — unconsum'd.
Burnt was the fatal tree, and smoak'd the air,
Gave sign that Hell's pollution had been there.