THE THREE GRAVES

(1820)

Close by the ever-burning brimstone beds Where Bedloe, Oates and Judas, hide their heads, 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 dismal tinct oppress'd the eye, that dwelt Upon it long, like darkness to be felt. The pillows to these baleful beds were toads, Large, living, livid, melancholy loads, Whose softness shock'd. Worms of all monstrous size Crawl'd round; and one, upcoil'd, which never dies. A doleful 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 living traitors spilt, By treachery stung from poverty to guilt. I ask'd the fiend, for whom these rites were meant? "These graves," quoth he, "when life's brief oil is spent, When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards, —I mean for Castles, Oliver, and Edwards."