XVIII.

  “No,” quoth the cherub; “George the Third is dead.” 
    “And who is George the Third?” replied the apostle;
  “What George?  What Third?” “The King of England,” said
    The angel.  “Well, he won’t find kings to jostle
  Him on his way; but does he wear his head? 
    Because the last we saw here had a tussle,
  And ne’er would have got into heaven’s good graces,
  Had he not flung his head in all our faces.

  XIX.

  “He was, if I remember, King of France,
    That head of his, which could not keep a crown
  On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance
    A claim to those of martyrs—­like my own. 
  If I had had my sword, as I had once
    When I cut ears off, I had cut him down;
  But having but my keys, and not my brand,
  I only knock’d his head from out his hand.

  XX.

  “And then he set up such a headless howl,
    That all the saints came out and took him in;
  And there he sits by St. Paul, cheek by jowl;
    That fellow Paul—­the parvenu!  The skin
  Of Saint Bartholomew, which makes his cowl
    In heaven, and upon earth redeem’d his sin
  So as to make a martyr, never sped
  Better than did that weak and wooden head.

  XXI.

  “But had it come up here upon its shoulders,
    There would have been a different tale to tell;
  The fellow-feeling in the saints’ beholders
    Seems to have acted on them like a spell;
  And so this very foolish head heaven solders
    Back on its trunk:  it may be very well,
  And seems the custom here to overthrow
  Whatever has been wisely done below.”

  XXII.

  The angel answer’d, “Peter! do not pout: 
    The king who comes has head and all entire,
  And never knew much what it was about—­
    He did as doth the puppet—­by its wire,
  And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt: 
    My business and your own is not to inquire
  Into such matters, but to mind our cue—­
  Which is to act as we are bid to do.”

  XXIII.

  While thus they spake, the angelic caravan,
    Arriving like a rush of mighty wind,
  Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan
    Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde,
  Or Thames, or Tweed), and ’midst them an old man
    With an old soul, and both extremely blind,
  Halted before the gate, and in his shroud
  Seated their fellow-traveller on a cloud.

  XXIV.

  But bringing up the rear of this bright host,
    A Spirit of a different aspect waved
  His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast
    Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved;
  His brow was like the deep when tempest-toss’d;
    Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved
  Eternal wrath on his immortal face,
  And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space.