Some Other Country
Pilate Explains
Easy for you all today to blame
My failure then to take a firmer line
The baying crowd that day were just the same;
Yellow-eyed, and stinking of cheap wine,
So quick to point the finger. And as if
All that wasn’t enough, there’s the wife,
Who hated living here from the start
Elbowing my ribs about some dream she’s
Had where he appeared; well have a heart;
Guilty as the next man to being weak, but
Think while you prepare the nose of history
In the end it turned our what I did was right:
Where would you be now if I had set him free?
– John O’Donnell