Or to say 'forgive the wrong,'

Or to ask her, 'take me, sweet,

To the regions of thy rest'?

13.

But the broad light glares and beats,

And the shadow flits and fleets

For into a shallow grave they are thrust,

Only a yard beneath the street,

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat,

The hoofs of the horses beat,

Beat into my scalp and my brain,

With never an end to the stream of passing feet,

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying,

Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter,

And here beneath it is all as bad,

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?

Wretchedest age, since Time began

They cannot even bury a man;

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone,

Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read;

It is that which makes us loud in the world of the

dead;

There is none that does his work, not one;

A touch of their office might have sufficed,

But the churchmén fain would kill their church,

As the churches have kill'd their Christ.

3.

See, there is one of us sobbing,

No limit to his distress;

And another, a lord of all things, praying

To his own great self, as I guess;

And another, a statesman there, betraying

His party-secret, fool, to the press;

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing

The case of his patient — all for what?

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head,

And wheedle a world that loves him not,

For it is but a world of the dead.

4.

Nothing but idiot gabble!

For the prophecy given of old

And then not understood,

Has come to pass as foretold;

Not let any man think for the public good,

But babble, merely for babble.

For I never whisper'd a private affair

Within the hearing of cat or mouse,

No, not to myself in the closet alone,

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the

house;

Everything came to be known:

Who told him we were there?

Not that

5.

gray old wolf, for he came not back

From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used

to lie;

He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown whelp

to crack;

Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die.

6.

Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip,

And curse me the British vermin, the rat;