So this is what we bury? How his face Seems like a smear of yellow wax. This beard Grown fine and curly. Something nasty here, Hermaphroditic, feminine. Like a dog That has run loose with rabies, yelps and snaps, And makes a terror for a day, is slain, And lies where passers-by can foot the corpse, So he lies here: this steadfast paranoic! How vanished from these sealed lids dreams of God! Where are they now? For all this outer world Of lunatics, care-takers, wardens, world Of fields and villages, the state and states Smiles at these lids so neatly sealed, the God That had his altar in the spectral light Of his mad eyes! This is the man who slew The slayer of the noble Lincoln. First For the common good was Caesar slain by Brutus, And Booth slew Lincoln in a dream of Brutus, This Corbett slew the slayer in a faith Of God. Catch up the corner of the sheet. He gets a grave where many hundreds lie, Each with his epitaph of "Rest in Peace"; Who had no peace in living, for the dreams Of God, or Duty, Terror, Visions Vain. Some say he came to Kansas, hither drawn By hope of sympathy, since all are mad In Kansas; otherwise the true God know, And keep His ritual of reform. He found God mocked in Kansas, or he had not tried To shoot the state assembly to a man, When he was keeper of the door. Perhaps 'Twas right enough to slay the actor Booth, Obeying God; we might accept his word God told him to kill Booth. But was it God Commanded him to slay so many honorable Members of the Kansas legislature For legislating, or not legislating As God would have them? Well, I have a doubt. And many doubted his divine appointment For massacre like that. And so we flung The lasso round him, gathered him, and quick We shut him in the pound, dishonored God, As he conceived it, doing so. I've heard Brutus at last said, Miserable Virtue, Bawd, Thou wert a world alone, a cheat at last! This Boston Corbett never did recant The faith, or God, the word. So ends it here. Mad unto death! This Corbett is the corneous And upcurved withered calyx of a flower Rich out of time. His madness is the lisping Of that same stricken calyx in the wind Of Infinite Mysteries. Are you ready now? Knot fast your corners of the sheet to hold. All ready, to the field. There in corruption We'll sow him, to be raised -- but why at all Should he be raised? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS by MATTHEW ARNOLD AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG by OLIVER GOLDSMITH CHIQUITA by FRANCIS BRET HARTE THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT ON THE VIRGINITY OF THE VIRGIN MARY AND JOHANNA SOUTHCOTT by WILLIAM BLAKE FIRST MATERNITY by KATHARINE BROWN BURT |