Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3810/At the Tower

by P. R. Chalmers

AT THE TOWER.

Upon the old black guns
 The old black raven hops;
We gave him bits of buns
 And cakes and acid-drops;
He's wise, and his way's devout,
 But he croaks and he flaps his wings
(And the flood runs out and the sergeants shout)
 For the first and the last of things;
He croaks to Robinson, Brown, and Jones,
 The song of the ravens, "Dead Men's Bones!"

For into the lifting dark
 And a drizzle of clearing rain,
His sire flapped out of the Ark
 And never came back again;
So I always fancy that,
 Ere the frail lost blue showed thin,
Alone he sat upon Ararat
 To see a new world in,
And yelped to the void from a cairn of stones
 The song of the ravens, "Dead Men's Bones!"

When the last of mankind lie slain
 On Armageddon's field,
When the last red west has ta'en
 The last day's flaming shield,
There shall sit when time shadows run
 (D'you doubt, good Sirs, d'you doubt?)
His last rogue son on an empty gun
 To see an old world out;
And he'll croak (as to Robinson, Brown and Jones)
 The song of the ravens, "Dead Men's' Bones!"