Frontiers break to barbary.
Hunger burns the palace-wall,
robs the revered graves. We see
the singer silent at the fall
of the King, the old life.
Peace and order flake away.
Every mountain, plain and bay
breeds its princeling of the knife.
Beast and bandit walk the earth
while the hero, careless, bored,
hunts the gamy hills alone,
and the tokens of his birth
(the cap, the sandals, and the sword)
rot unclaimed under the stone.