I saw great Satan like a Sexton stand,
With his intolerable spade in hand,
Digging three graves. Of coffin shape they were
For those who coffinless must enter there,
With unblest rites. The shrouds were of that cloth
Which Clotho weaveth in her blackest wrath.
The pillows to these baleful beds were toads,
Large, living, livid, melancholy loads,
Whose softness shocked. Worms of all monstrous size
Crawled round; and one, upcoiled, that never coils.
A dismal bell, inculcating despair,
Was always ringing in the heavy air:
And all about the detestable pit
Strange headless ghosts, and quarter'd forms did flit;
Rivers of blood from dripping traitors spilt,
By treachery stung from poverty to guilt.
I asked the Fiend, for whom those rites were meant?
" These graves," quoth he, " when life's short oil is spent, —
When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards —
I mean for Castles, Oliver and Edwards."