Amongst the ponderous tomes of learning.

Dull texts of medicine and law,

With idle thumb the pages turning

In sudden carnival, I saw,

Revelling forth into the day

In scarlet liveries, nine or ten

Survivors of their own decay—

The flayed anatomies of men:

And marked how well the scalpel’s care

Was aided by the painter’s tones

To liven with a jaunty air

Their crazy trellises of bones.

In regimental stripes and bands

Each emphasised the cause he serves—

Here was a grenadier of glands

And there a gay hussar of nerves:

And one his skin peeled off, as though

A workman’s coat, with surly shrug

The flexion of the thews to show,

Treading a shovel, grimly dug.

Dour sexton, working overtime,

With gristly toes he hooked his spade

To trench the very marl and slime

In which he should have long been laid.

The lucky many of the dead—

Their suit of darkness fits them tight,

Buttoned with stars from foot to head

They wear the uniform of Night;

But some for extra shift are due

Who, slaves for any fool to blame,

With a flayed sole the ages through

Must push the shovel of their fame.