A gaunt bone-coloured desert, unassuaged.
He was a grim diplomatist, as befits
A pilgrim of the cosmos; ready at Rome
To tickle the Romans; and, if bishops ruled,
And found themselves at odds with freeborn souls
Outside the Land of Freedom, he’d befriend
Bishops, bring in the New World, stars and all,
To rectify that balance, and take home
For souvenir, with a chip of the pyramids,
The last odd homages of the obsequious Old.