Classic Poem

“Did you ever dream he'd be like this?” Paul said.
And Edith tossed her bright cloud: “Abbott was right,
I cannot endure this creature in my sight.”
But the old King was so much this side of dead,
One day they nursed him, then he sat up in bed,
Then they arranged his chair with cushions and things
And he held his court in the old manner of Kings,
His minions bowing so low they stood on head.

The fishy green of the King's eye was not fast,
It veered to a mottled wrath or a yellow smile
If the brain behind was busy after that style;
And this inconstant orb perused Sir Paul
And his fine calves, which would make a Seneschal,
If aught was above the shoulders, which were vast.