Dissceptre

“How art thou fallen, oh thou Morning star! / “For we are kings at least, and take our fill / “Of rest, each one in glory on his bed, / “Strewn with sweet odours, divers kinds of spice, / “But thou art as a wanderer in our land, / “Thy carcase, trodden under foot of men— / “Disrobed, dissceptred, dropp’d with blood, discrown’d!”

Her voice dies away, and her head sinks on her breast. His high Queen! Already she looks discrowned and dissceptred.

This barren tree, dead, withered, which lifts high / Its barkless boughs to heaven in appeal, / Reminds me of that king who would unseal / The future by portentous birds which fly / O’er one lone peak—just as these twigs now sigh / So sighed old Barbarossa, who could feel / The past too deeply, longing to reveal / His presence in the strength of monarchy, / Yon points are perches for the screaming jay, / The crow, the vulture, and the hooded hawk; / The mild winds set them creaking—yet what wars / They waged of yore when storms abroad did stalk— / Disrobed, dissceptred, robbed of life’s sweet day, / And sense of power beneath the glancing stars.

But I’ll not disthrone and dissceptre God of His omniscience: not abridge His choice: no, not were it to become of Himself a little stinking muck of dirt that is swept out of unclean corners.