To The Mercy Killer by Dudley Randall

If ever mercy move you murder me,

I pray you, kindly killers, let me live.

Never conspire with death to set me free,

but let me know such life as pain can give.

Even though I be a clot, an aching clench,

a stub, a stump, a butt, a scap, a knob,

a screaming pain, a putrefying stench,

still let me live, so long as life shall throb.

Even though I turn such traitor to myself

as beg to die, do not accomplice me.

Even though I seem not human, a mute shelf

of glucose, bottled blood, machinery

to swell the lung and pump the heart, even so,

do not put out my life. Let me still glow.

analysis:
The poem was written in 1973 by the African-American poet and librarian Dudley Randall and has since become one of the most effective poetical pieces against mercy killing. Dudley Randall was born 14 January 1914 in Washington, D.C., but moved to Detroit in 1920. This poem takes one of the most controversial issues in America in that era; euthanasia. Based on BBC, Euthanasia means the termination of a very sick person's life in order to relieve them of their suffering. In most cases euthanasia is carried out because the person who dies asks for it, but there are cases called euthanasia where a person can't make such a request.

For the conclusion, as a whole of the interpretation of this “To the Mercy Killers” poetry, i think the writer portrays a darkened scene of a man struggling with himself because of his illness and he doesn’t want to be killed by the mercy killer. I think the mercy killer could be a doctor. The writer wants to describe, even the victims in the future life isn’t in the good condition or in miserable, they still have a chance to live their life and don’t want to be euthanized by those mercy killers.