The Vision of Judgment 011

XI

So mix his body with the dust! It might
Return to what it must far sooner, were
The natural compound left alone to fight
Its way back into earth, and fire, and air;
But the unnatural balsams merely blight
What nature made him at his birth, as bare
As the mere million's base unmarried clay -
Yet all his spices but prolong decay.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
ByronLongJudgment