And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repinesLike a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and greyLike plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass.

White founts falling in the courts of the sun, And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run.

Nelson turned his blindest eye On Naples and on liberty.

Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal, The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way; Even to-day your royal head may fall — I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay —My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall —I see a little cloud all pink and grey —Perhaps the rector’s mother will not call —I fancy that I heard from Mr. GallThat mushrooms could be cooked another way —I never read the works of Juvenal —I think I will not hang myself to-day.The world will have another washing day;The decadents decay; the pedants pall;And H. G. Wells has found that children play,And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;Rationalists are growing rational —And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,So secret that the very sky seems small —I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The strangest whim has seized me. ... After all I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The gallows in my garden, people say,Is new and neat and adequately tall.

Prince, Prince-Elective on the modern plan, Fulfilling such a lot of People’s Wills, You take the Chiltern Hundreds while you can— A storm is coming on the Chiltern Hills.