RAHERE, King Henry’s jester, feared by all the Norman Lords
For his eye that pierced their bosoms, for his tongue that shamed their swords;
Feed and flattered by the Churchmen — well they knew how deep he stood
In dark Henry’s crooked counsels — fell upon an evil mood.
Suddenly, his days before him and behind him seemed to stand
Stripped and barren, fixed and fruitless, as those leagues of naked sand
When St. Michael’s ebb slinks outward to the bleak horizon-bound.
And the trampling wide-mouthed waters are withdrawn from sight and sound.
Then a Horror of Great Darkness sunk his spirit and, anon.
(Who had seen him wince and whiten as he turned to walk alone)
Followed Gilbert the Physician, and muttered in his ear.
‘Thou hast it, O my brother?’ ‘Yea, I have it,’ said Rahere.
‘So it comes,’ said Gilbert smoothly, ‘man’s most immanent distress.
’Tis a humour of the Spirit which abhorreth all excess;
And, whatever breed the surfeit — Wealth, or Wit, or Power, or Fame
(And thou hast each) the Spirit laboureth to expel the same.
‘Hence the dulled eye’s deep self-loathing hence the loaded leaden brow;
Hence the burden of Wanhope that aches thy soul and body now.
Ay, ............