But he was an honest lawyer, so he perished in a ditch.”
He said, and threw a summersault into that dreary vat—
Head foremost, like a thunder-bolt down went the brimless hat;
Down went the brimless beaver, fall many a fathom deep,
And the women took hysterics, and the men began to weep.
When they dashed away the tear drops, and looked ahead again,
Where that gulf had late been yawning, there lay a level plain.
And they reared a marble tombstone on the spot where he had died,
And in letters carved and gilded, was inscribed on either side
Here Marcus Curtius lyes,