Classic Poem

You try your best to slip away
Across the sun-baked alkali;
And failing, rattle warning fair,
While I decree that you must die.
My gun roars out, I ride away,
I've killed a rattlesnake, that's all;
No more o'er sun-baked alkali
Will that dread shape in hatred crawl.

“In hatred crawl?” Speak I the truth?
I take your life as if I knew
I had the right; yet I cannot
Return that which I took from you.
A baby has been known to lay
Its little hands on you in glee,
And you struck not. Perhaps my hate
Is what stirs hate in you for me.