The Ex-Living One

Say, Brutus, where can thy Cassius be,
The watchman, the crier nightly,
Who once on the banks of the Seine with thee
Used to ramble in converse sprightly?

Ye often were wont to gaze up on high,
Where the darksome clouds were scudding;
A far darker cloud were the thoughts, by-the-by,
That in your bosoms were budding.

Say, Brutus, where can thy Cassius be?
No longer he thinks of destroying;
By the Neckar he dwells, where his talents is he
As a reader to tyrants employing.

But Brutus replied: “A fool, friend, art thou,
“Shortsighted as every poet;
“To a tyrant my Cassius now reads, I allow,
“But his object’s to kill him,--I know it.

“So Matzerath’s poems he reads him each day
“A dagger is each line in it;
“And so the poor tyrant, I’m sorry to say,
“May die of ennui any minute.”