Epitaph to Be Spoken

When I am very dead and rather cold,
Say merely this, “Here lies a rebel town,
Whose alleyways contained for chief renown
Gods, logwood, cassia, antelopes and gold.
Here traffickers embarked for desperate shores,
Here was a bickering of steel at times;
And fifty thousand unconvicted crimes
That shocked the souls out of my counselors.

Friend of my arrogance, city I burned,
Have peace—now you are prouder grown than Troy;
And will not bring me lions, or a flower.
Or cauterize the fools we both have spurned;
Or hasten, singing, toward a mad employ,
On two thick stilts, some thousand yards an hour.”