III
And so through each declining phase
Of emptied effort, jaded wit,
And day by day of London days
Obscurely, more obscurely, lit;
Until the uncertain shadows flit
Announcing to the shuddering air
A Darkening, and the end of it:—
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
Envoi
Prince, on their iron thrones they sit,
Impassible to our despair,
The dreadful Guardians of the Pit:—
And Mrs Roebeck will be there.
BALLADE OF UNSUCCESSFUL MEN
I
The cause of all the poor in ’93:
The cause of all the world at Waterloo:
The shouts of what was terrible and free
Behind the guns of Vengeance and her crew:
The Maid that rode so straightly and so true
And broke the line to pieces in her pride—
They had to chuck it up; it wouldn’t do;
The Devil didn’t like them, and they died.
II
Cæsar and Alexander shall agree
That right athwart the world their bugles blew:
And all the lads that marched in Lombardy
Behind the young Napoleon charging through:
All that were easy swordsmen, all that slew
The Monsters, and that served our God and tried
The temper of this world—they lost the clue.
The Devil didn’t like them, and they died.