Death Penalty

I saw the guilty man led out to die
By law more barbarous than ever he.
His body long outlasted sanity.
And there but for the grace of God go I.

It will be mine, not his, to wonder why
I am the lucky innocent, not he.
And is this grace? that God decides on me
By whim, capricious choice, or roll of die?

Perhaps eternal life will raise this freak,
And I will be the one condemned to hell,
A kind of justice then, grace for the meek
And judgement for the one who dared to tell
That justice may roll down like sewage in my kind -
But rather human blight than ordained loss of mind.