Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years: 
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? 
Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons?  Black—­
’Twas ever antique-black I meant!  How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? 
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables deg. ... but I know deg.62
Ye mark me not!  What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm?  Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! 
Nay, boys, ye love me—­all of jasper, then! 
’Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
My bath must needs be left behind, alas! 70
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world—­
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? 
—­That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s deg. every word, deg.77
No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line—­
Tully, my masters?  Ulpian deg. serves his need! deg.79
And then how I shall lie thro’ centuries, 80
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! 
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s-work:  90
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals, and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,
—­Aha, ELUCESCEBAT deg. quoth our friend? deg.99
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! 100
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. 
All lapis, all, sons!  Else I give the Pope
My villas!  Will ye ever eat my heart? 
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul. 
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,