And the Graces, the good Conservative Three, shrank back to a spot remote,
And observed that they knew that this would come from letting the Masses vote.
Then AZRAEL spake—"On the Stygian lake I floated a half-sinned sin
On the crest of a cross-grained stickleback, that is caught with a crooked pin;
For a year and a day I watched it whirl, but never that sin could be
One-half so base as your gruesome face, O Soul of a Sundered Flea!
"What ill have ye done? Speak up, speak up!—for this is no place, I trow,
For the puling people on virtue fed. So speak, or prepare to go."
But the Flea flew free from the pincers' grip, and uttered a single phrase—
"I have lived on blood, as a gentleman should, and that is my claim to praise."