A DEAD KING

Go down to hell. This end is good to see;

The breath is lightened and the sense at ease

Because thou art not; sense nor breath there is

In what thy body was, whose soul shall be

Chief nerve of hell's pained heart eternally.

Thou art abolished from the midst of these

That are what thou wast: Pius from his knees

Blows off the dust that flecked them, bowed for thee.

Yea, now the long-tongued slack-lipped litanies

Fail, and the priest has no more prayer to sell —

Now the last Jesuit found about thee is

The beast that made thy fouler flesh his cell —

Time lays his finger on thee, saying, “Cease;

Here is no room for thee; go down to hell.”