Can be presumed in one so close to death,
It is decreed that thou, my heart's desire,
Who scarcely art, must finally expire;
Yea, they who hold thy fortunes in their hands,
Base-truckling to the profiteer's commands,
No more to my slim revenues will temper
The cost of thee, but with a harsh "Sic semper
Pauperibus" fling thee, heedless of my prayers,
Into the fatted laps of war-time millionaires.
No more when Phœbus bids the day be born