The Wild Knight and Other Poems: The Desecraters

The Desecraters

Witness all: that unrepenting,
Feathers flying, music high,
I go down to death unshaken
By your mean philosophy.

For your wages, take my body,
That at least to you I leave;
Set the sulky plumes upon it,
Bid the grinning mummers grieve.

Stand in silence: steep your raiment
In the night that hath no star;
Don the mortal dress of devils,
Blacker than their spirits are.

Since ye may not, of your mercy,
Ere I lie on such a hearse,
Hurl me to the living jackals
God hath built for sepulchres.