CASTELLATED, tall From battlements fall Shades on heroic Lonely grass, Where the moonlight's echoes die and pass. Near the rustic boorish, Fustian Moorish, Castle wall of the ultimate Shade, With his cloak castellated as that wall, afraid, The mountebank doctor, The old stage quack, Where decoy duck dust Began to clack, Watched Heliogabalusene the Bat In his furred cloak hang head down from the flat Wall, cling to what is convenient, Lenient. "If you hang upside down with squeaking shrill, You will see dust, lust, and the will to kill, And life is a matter of which way falls Your tufted turreted Shade near these walls. For muttering guttering shadow will plan If you're ruined wall, or pygmy man," Said Heliogabalusene, "or a pig, Or the empty Caesar in tall periwig." And the mountebank doctor, The old stage quack, Spread out a black membraned wing of his cloak And his shuffling footsteps seem to choke, Near the Castle wall of the ultimate Shade Where decoy duck dust Quacks, clacks, afraid. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LESSER EPISTLES: TO BERNARD LINTOTT by JOHN GAY WRITTEN [OR LINES] IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM by THOMAS HOOD EPITAPH ON A JACOBITE by THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY AFTERNOON ON A HILL by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY IN PROGRESS by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI AUTUMN: A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY |