Poets Have Chanted Mortality

It had better been hidden But the Poets inform: We are chattel and liege Of an undying Worm. Were you, Will, disheartened, When all Stratford’s gentry Left their Queen and took service In his low-lying country? How many white cities And grey fleets on the storm Have proud-builded, hard-battled, For this undying Worm? Was a sweet chaste lady Would none of her lover. Nay, here comes the Lewd One, Creeps under her cover! Have ye said there’s no deathless Of face, fashion, form, Forgetting to honor The extent of the Worm? O ye laughers and light-lipped, Ye faithless, infirm, I can tell you who’s constant, ’Tis the Eminent Worm. Ye shall trip on no limits, Neither time ye your term, In the realms of His Absolute Highness the Worm.