The Four Idiot Brothers

DRIED, as 'twere, to skeleton chips,
In the Madhouse found I Four:
From their white and shrivelled lips
Cometh language never more.
Ghastly, stony, stiff, each brother
Gazes vacant on the other;

Till the midnight hour be come;
Bristles then erect their hair,
And the lips all day so dumb
Utter slowly to the air,
"Dies irce, dies ilia,
Solvet seclum in famlla,"

Four bold brothers once were these,
Riotous and reprobate,
Whose rakehellish revelries
Terrified the more sedate.
Ghostly guide and good adviser
Tried in vain to make them wiser.

On his deathbed spake their sire —
"Hear your father from his tomb!
Kouse not GOD'S eternal ire;
Ponder well the day of doom,
' Dies irce, dies ilia,
Solvet seclum in famlla."1 "

So spake he, and died: the Four
All unmoved beheld him die.
Happy he! — his labors o'er,
He was ta'en to bliss on high,
While his sons, like very devils
Loosed from Hell, pursued their revels.

Still they courted each excess
Atheism and Vice could dare;
Ironhearted, feelingless,
Not a hair of theirs grew grayer.
"Live," they cried, "while life enables!
GOD and devil alike are fables!"

Once at midnight as the Four
Eiotously reeled along,
From an open temple-door
Streamed a flood of holy song.
"Cease, ye hounds, your yelling noises!"
Cried the devil by their voices.

Through the temple vast and dim
Goes the unhallowed greeting, while
Still the singers chant their hymn.
Hark! it echoes down the aisle —
"Dies irce, dies ilia,
Solvet seclum infavilla."

On the instant stricken as
By the wrath of GOD they stand,
Each dull eyeball fixed like glass,
Mute each eye, unnerved each hand,
Blanched their hair and wan their features,
Speechless, mindless, idiot creatures!

And now, dried to skeleton chips,
In the Mad-cell sit the Four,
Moveless: — from their blasted lips
Cometh language never more.
Ghastly, stony, stiff, each brother
Gazes vacant on the other;

Till the midnight hour be come;
Bristles then erect their hair,
And their lips, all day so dumb,
Utter slowly to the air,
"Dies irce, dies ilia,
Solvet seclum in favilla.