THE VULTURES

Oh, vultures that this bleak land shows

Where, the wild wind with fury blows,

What are those bones beneath your wing?

- They are Hermagoras, the king.

His queen to another court hath gone,

Another king sits on his throne,

His riches all are in the East,

Elsewhere his courtiers dance and feast.

We have made his rotting flesh our food,

His gentle skin to tear was good;

For his mantle black and his fair array

His servants took as here he lay.

The sun hath bleached his skeleton

And ants and worms do breed thereon,

And those he loved if they go by

Disdain his bones beneath the sky.