He Surveys Life’s Impending Immolation

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

The hour upon my day is past,
These earthly glories will not last.

I lived to see my countrymen
Succumb to madness, dull their ken,

And overthrow a precious gift
In government, for common grift.

As men about me lost their heads
Engulfed in anarchy that spreads,

Through loss of what was dear to me
Yet I retained my sanity.

In life, what I attempted, failed;
In death, the effort not bewailed,

I took a comfort from the thought
That soul’s allegiance was not bought.

Brief is man’s hour beneath the sun,
But it must set, when day is done.