Poets Have Chanted Mortality

It had better been hidden
But the Poets inform:
We are chattel and liege
Of an undying Worm.

Were you, Will, disheartened,
When all Stratford’ s gentry
Left their Queen and took service
In his low-lying country?

How many white cities
And grey fleets on the storm
Have proud-builded, hard-battled,
For this undying Worm?

Was a sweet chaste lady
Would none of her lover.
Nay, here comes the Lewd One,
Creeps under her cover!

Have ye said there’ s no deathless
Of face, fashion, form,
Forgetting to honor
The extent of the Worm?

O ye laughers and light-lipped,
Ye faithless, infirm,
I can tell you who’ s constant,
’ Tis the Eminent Worm.

Ye shall trip on no limits,
Neither time ye your term,
In the realms of His Absolute
Highness the Worm.