Lazar-house, and justice-hall,-
From all places where men fall
Before the bastard Wealth, with prayers
That his leprosy be theirs,

From all corners wherein Trade
Is owned, honor'd, and obey'd,
Came his subjects, one and all
Hungering for his carnival.

Slave-hawking philanthropists
Hooded Hate on their clench'd fists
With straight lip and horny cheek,
Silver-toned, precise, and sleek;

Mowing apes, in saintly guise-
Lawn-sleeved, mitred Blasphemies
Ulcerous, full of bile and phlegm,
Biting all who jostled them;

Bloody-visaged, laurel-brow'd,
Drunk with fraud and lust and blood,
Rapine's purchased servitors,
Their vile backs were housed with scars;

With dead eyes, in parchment shrouds,
The vampires of the Law-dark clouds
Harpy-featured-wheresoe'er
They came, straightway that place was bare ;

Journalists, with inky masks
And poison'd javelins, empty flasks
Slung at their backs, --a pitchy smoke
Hung around them as a cloak;

Plague-spotted anatomies,
Laden with quack-recipes
Jackals of slow Death,-Disease
Sent them forth as missionaries;

Daintily caparison'd,
Mammon's minions, richly zoned

By a gilded snake which had
Gnawn their hearts out,--they with mad

And furious leapings bacchanal
Stagger'd on, and aye did crawl
From within them gouts of blood
With a ghastly life endow'd;

Trade's more dunghill rabblement,
Ever cringing as they went,
Like foul bladders, wind-distent,
Glutted with obscene content;

Statesmen, with irreverent cares
Nestling in their hoary hairs,
On lame asses did they ride,
And lolloping from side to side

Went drunkenly :-so madly all
Rode riot tow’rd the festival,
With strange shouts of ribaldry,
Horrible to hear and see.

With strange shrieks of ribaldry,
Taunting their own misery, -
Trampling over the world's graves,
Tumbling headlong, like mad waves

Driven on a jagged coast-their lips
Hung with foam, such foam as drips
From mad dogs' mouths :-so stagger'd on
The bydra-headed Carrion.

What is he who breaks their way ?
Tis an old man, weak and grey,
On whose haggard front are traced
The chronicles of rule disgraced.

On his massive brow is set
Cain's curse, for a coronet;
And his keen looks peer like thievos
Underneath his eyebrows' eaves.