A rainy country this, that I am monarch of, — A rich but powerless king, worn-out while yet a boy; For whom in vain the falcon falls upon the dove; Not even his starving people's groans can give him joy; Scorning his tutors, loathing his spaniels, finding stale His favorite jester's quips, yawning at the droll tale. His bed, for all its fleurs de lis, looks like a tomb; The ladies of the court, attending him, to whom He, being a prince, is handsome, see him lying there Cold as a corpse, and lift their shoulders in despair: No garment they take off, no garter they leave on Excites the gloomy eye of this young skeleton. The royal alchemist, who makes him gold from lead, The baser element from out the royal head Cannot extract; nor can those Roman baths of blood, For some so efficacious, cure the hebetude Of him, along whose veins, where flows no blood at all, For ever the slow waters of green Lethe crawl.