And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,

It seem'd the mockery of hell to fold

The rottenness of eighty years in gold.

XI.

So mix his body with the dust! It might

Return to what it must far sooner, were

The natural compound left alone to fight

Its way back into earth, and fire, and air,

But the unnatural balsams merely blight

What nature made him at his birth, as bare