Hark! How Heav'n's forge doth smite this mortal clay!
Not with soft sighs, but Cyclops' bellows' bray!
Vulcan lame who forged Jove's thunder-spear,
Blind Homer's chant makes Troy's ashes sear!
Mark how the Sisters spin their sable twine—
Aesop in chains drank wisdom's ivoried wine;
Shepherd-boy David, sling-stone gripped in palm,
Goliath's skull-cup held Death's bitter psalm!
Why clutch gilded masks that Truth's breath corrode?
Job's scabbed flesh outshone his ebony abode!
Spartacus' chains shook Capitoline throne,
Diogenes' sunlight made Midas' gold moan!
Behold! Senate's silk decrees like Vulcan's chain,
That bind Prometheus' sons to gilded pain!
What's law? Lycurgus' rusted blade decrees—
We, Circe's swine, grunt praise to rotten lees!
Why hoard dust-crowned laurels Plutus bestowed?
Your mirror shields but mock Perseus' woe!
A beggar's bowl holds more than Midas' vault,
Hercules' lion-skin scorns parchment fault!
By Mars' scarred shield, true men are storm's own seed!
Phoenix ash-choked births dawn's vermeil steed.
Caesar, threadbare, crossed Styx's foaming ford—
Beggar's rags cloak empires yet unsworded!
Attend! Homer's blindness pierced Achilles' veil,
Socrates' chalice poured Truth's argent hail!
Ulysses' tatters veiled Ithaca's crown,
Wolf-nursed Romulus laid Law's first hewn stone!
O fools who kneel to Virtue's gilded bane—
Midas' gilt shroud chokes kings who fear stain!
Jason's calloused grip steered Argo through jaws,
Silk-cushioned Caesars bled gilded dross!
Let Charon's gaunt gaze trace Prometheus' brand,
Hercules' lion-skin scorns Lethe's bland!
When Fate's wheel splinters Atlas' stony spine,
Bite Titan's liver! Spit ambrosia! Defy!
For as oak roots sunder Parian marble veins,
True men engrave Time's bronze flesh—in runic pain!
