Spleen

I'm like some king in whose corrupted veins     Flows agd blood; who rules a land of rains;     Who, young in years, is old in all distress;     Who flees good counsel to find weariness     Among his dogs and playthings, who is stirred     Neither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;     Whose weary face emotion moves no more     E'en when his people die before his door.     His favourite Jester's most fantastic wile     Upon that sick, cruel face can raise no smile;     The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,     Can lighten this young skeleton's dull mood     No more with shameless toilets. In his gloom     Even his lilied bed becomes a tomb.     The sage who takes his gold essays in vain     To purge away the old corrupted strain,     His baths of blood, that in the days of old     The Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,     Will never warm this dead man's bloodless pains,     For green Lethean water fills his veins.