Epitaph To Be Spoken

When I am very dead and rather cold, Say merely this, “Here lies a rebel town, Whose alleyways contained for chief renown Gods, logwood, cassia, antelopes and gold. Here traffickers embarked for desperate shores, Here was a bickering of steel at times; And fifty thousand unconvicted crimes That shocked the souls out of my counselors.

Friend of my arrogance, city I burned, Have peace—now you are prouder grown than Troy; And will not bring me lions, or a flower. Or cauterize the fools we both have spurned; Or hasten, singing, toward a mad employ, On two thick stilts, some thousand yards an hour.”