Selected Poems (143 page)

I

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate:

His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull,

So little trouble had been given of late;

Not that the place by any means was full,

5

But since the Gallic era ‘eighty-eight’

The devils had ta’en a longer, stronger pull,

And ‘a pull altogether,’ as they say

At sea – which drew most souls another way.

II

The angels all were singing out of tune,

10

And hoarse with having little else to do,

Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,

Or curb a runaway young star or two,

Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon

Broke out of bounds o’er the ethereal blue,

15

Splitting some planet with its playful tail,

As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.

III

The guardian seraphs had retired on high,

Finding their charges past all care below;

Terrestrial business fill’d nought in the sky

20

Save the recording angel’s black bureau;

Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply

With such rapidity of vice and wo,

That he had stripp’d off both his wings in quills,

And yet was in arrear of human ills.

IV

25

His business so augmented of late years,

That he was forced, against his will, no doubt,

(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,)

For some resource to turn himself about

And claim the help of his celestial peers,

30

To aid him ere he should be quite worn out

By the increased demand for his remarks;

Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks.

V

This was a handsome board — at least for heaven;

And yet they had even then enough to do,

35

So many conquerors’ cars were daily driven,

So many kingdoms fitted up anew;

Each day too slew its thousands six or seven,

Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo,

They threw their pens down in divine disgust —

40

The page was so besmear’d with blood and dust.

VI

This by the way; ’tis not mine to record

What angels shrink from: even the very devil

On this occasion his own work abhorr’d,

So surfeited with the infernal revel:

45

Though he himself had sharpen’d every sword,

It almost quench’d his innate thirst of evil.

(Here Satan’s sole good work deserves insertion –

’Tis, that he has both generals in reversion.)

VII

Let’s skip a few short years of hollow peace,

50

Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont,

And heaven none — they form the tyrant’s lease,

With nothing but new names subscribed upon’t;

’Twill one day finish: meantime they increase,

‘With seven heads and ten horns,’ and all in front,

55

Like Saint John’s foretold beast; but ours are born

Less formidable in the head than horn.

VIII

In the first year of freedom’s second dawn

Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one

Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn

60

Left him nor mental nor external sun:

A better farmer ne’er brush’d dew from lawn,

A worse king never left a realm undone!

He died — but left his subjects still behind,

One half as mad – and t’other no less blind.

IX

65

He died! — his death made no great stir on earth;

His burial made some pomp; there was profusion

Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth

Of aught but tears — save those shed by collusion.

For these things may be bought at their true worth;

70

Of elegy there was the due infusion –

Bought also; and the torches, cloaks, and banners,

Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners,

X

Form’d a sepulchral melodrame. Of all

The fools who flock’d to swell or see the show,

75

Who cared about the corpse? The funeral

Made the attraction, and the black the woe.

There throbb’d not there a thought which pierced the pall;

And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,

It seem’d the mockery of hell to fold

80

The rottenness of eighty years in gold.

XI

So mix his body with the dust! It might

Return to what it
must
far sooner, were

The natural compound left alone to fight

Its way back into earth, and fire, and air;

85

But the unnatural balsams merely blight

What nature made him at his birth, as bare

As the mere million’s base unmummied clay –

Yet all his spices but prolong decay.

XII

He’s dead – and upper earth with him has done;

90

He’s buried; save the undertaker’s bill,

Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone

For him, unless he left a German will;

But where’s the proctor who will ask his son?

In whom his qualities are reigning still,

95

Except that household virtue, most uncommon,

Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.

XIII

‘God save the king!’ It is a large economy

In God to save the like; but if he will

Be saving, all the better; for not one am I

100

Of those who think damnation better still:

I hardly know too if not quite alone am I

In this small hope of bettering future ill

By circumscribing, with some slight restriction,

The eternity of hell’s hot jurisdiction.

XIV

105

I know this is unpopular; I know

’Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damn’d

For hoping no one else may e’er be so;

I know my catechism; I know we are cramm’d

With the best doctrines till we quite o’erflow;

110

I know that all save England’s church have shamm’d,

And that the other twice two hundred churches

And synagogues have made a
damn’d
bad purchase.

XV

God help us all! God help me too! I am

God knows, as helpless as the devil can wish,

115

And not a whit more difficult to damn

Than is to bring to land a late-hook’d fish,

Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb;

Nor that I’m fit for such a noble dish

As one day will be that immortal fry

120

Of almost every body born to die.

XVI

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,

And nodded o’er his keys; when, lo! there came

A wondrous noise he had not heard of late –

A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame;

125

In short, a roar of things extremely great,

Which would have made aught save a saint exclaim;

But he, with first a start and then a wink,

Said, ‘There’s another star gone out, I think!’

XVII

But ere he could return to his repose,

130

A cherub flapp’d his right wing o’er his eyes —

At which Saint Peter yawn’d, and rubb’d his nose:

‘Saint porter,’ said the angel, ‘prithee rise!’

Waving a goodly wing, which glow’d, as glows

An earthly peacock’s tail, with heavenly dyes:

135

To which the saint replied, ’Well, what’s the matter?

‘Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?’

XVIII

‘No,’ quoth the cherub; ‘George the Third is dead.’

‘And who
is
George the Third?’ replied the apostle:

‘
What George? what Third?
’ ‘The king of England,’ said

140

The angel. ‘Well! he won’t find kings to jostle

Him on his way; but does he wear his head?

Because the last we saw here had a tustle,

And ne’er would have got into heaven’s good graces,

Had he not flung his head in all our faces.

XIX

145

‘He was, if I remember, king of France;

That head of his, which could not keep a crown

On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance