XI.

  So mix his body with the dust!  It might
    Return to what it must far sooner, were
  The natural compound left alone to fight
    Its way back into earth, and fire, and air,
  But the unnatural balsams merely blight
    What nature made him at his birth, as bare
  As the mere million’s base unmummied clay—­
  Yet all his spices but prolong decay.

  XII.

  He’s dead—­and upper earth with him has done;
    He’s buried; save the undertaker’s bill,
  Or lapidary’s scrawl, the world has gone
    For him, unless he left a German will. 
  But where’s the proctor who will ask his son? 
    In whom his qualities are reigning still,
  Except that household virtue, most uncommon,
  Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.

  XIII.

  “God save the King!” It is a large economy
    In God to save the like; but if He will
  Be saving, all the better; for not one am I
    Of those who think damnation better still;
  I hardly know, too, if not quite alone am I
    In this small hope of bettering future ill
  By circumscribing, with some slight restriction,
  The eternity of hell’s hot jurisdiction.

  XIV.

  I know this is unpopular; I know
    ’Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damn’d
  For hoping no one else may e’er be so;
    I know my catechism:  I know we ’re cramm’d
  With the best doctrines till we quite o’erflow;
    I know that all save England’s church have shamm’d;
  And that the other twice two hundred churches
  And synagogues have made a damn’d bad purchase.

  XV.

  God help us all!  God help me too!  I am,
    God knows, as helpless as the devil can wish,
  And not a whit more difficult to damn,
    Than is to bring to land a late-hooked fish,
  Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb;
    Not that I’m fit for such a noble dish,
  As one day will be that immortal fry
  Of almost everybody born to die.

  XVI.

  Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,
    And nodded o’er his keys; when lo! there came
  A wondrous noise he had not heard of late—­
    A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame;
  In short, a roar of things extremely great,
    Which would have made all save a saint exclaim;
  But he, with first a start and then a wink,
  Said, “There’s another star gone out, I think!”

  XVII.

  But ere he could return to his repose,
    A cherub flapp’d his right wing o’er his eyes—­
  At which Saint Peter yawn’d and rubb’d his nose;
    “Saint porter,” said the angel, “prithee rise!”
  Waving a goodly wing, which glow’d, as glows
    An earthly peacock’s tail, with heavenly dyes;
  To which the Saint replied, “Well, what’s the matter? 
  Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?”