WHERE are the royal beagles so high-fed?
The grated cart shakes them from side to side,
Protruding with stretcht neck the sweating tongue:
Open it; take them by the scuff, and toss
The creatures into kennel: let them bark,
And stand upright against the bolted door
All day, and howl all night.
O Politics!
Can no man touch ye but his hand must stink
His whole life thro’? must sound become unsound
In your inclosure?
O ye busy mites
That live within our cheese, and fatten there,
And seem its substance, must ye feel the keen
And searching air, and thus be swept away!
The scullery and sink receive ye, sent
Pace after race; and yet ye will outlast
Sesostris and Osiris, girded round
By guards of obelisks and pyramids;
Your generations numberless, your food
Man’s corrupt nature, man’s corroded heart
Man’s liquified and unsubstantial brain.
Yea, while the world rolls on, unfelt to roll,
There will be Greys and Stanleys round its core.
Divested of their marrow and their nerve,
Gigantic forms lie underneath our feet
Without our knowing it: we pass, repass,
And only stop, and then stop listlessly,
Or idly curions, when some scient hand
Unearths and holds huge bones before our eyes,
And says, “Ye trampled on them, silly clowns!
Now they may teach you somewhat; try to learn.”
Meanwhile the meadow hums with insect sounds,
And gilded backs and wings o’ertop the grass,
And, cap in hand, and over bog and briar,
Men run to catch them. Such are prized, and cased
In secret cabinet for royal use.