A CHAIRMAN OF TRIBUNAL
"I am joined with ... nobility and tranquillity,
burgomasters and great oneyers such as ... pray
continually to their saint the commonwealth."—
I Henry IV, ii. 1.
SO ringed about with sparrow-hawks and owls,
Bloodhounds and weasels, triplicated jowls,
Complaisant dewlaps and uneasy eyes,
He sits—this President of Destinies—
Fingers his papers, strokes his creasy chin,
Bellows beneath his borrowed baldaquin.
Cocytus still sobs past him, on its brink
He lays nice odds which souls emerge or sink,
Paddles his bovine hoofs in the spilt bliss
Of Love, and in the tearfullest abyss
Angles for little jests. He knows no ruth—
Though even Pilate was concerned for Truth
And Caiaphas for Forms—his scarlet thumb
Was born reversed: and Innocence is dumb
Bound by the implication of his dream,
Unholy revenant of a dead régime,
Who made red War ere God made me and you
And now, God willing, thinks to see it through.