Classic Poem

We toil within the temple's crypts, with ghastly dead beside us,
The horrors of our handiwork from people oft divide us,
And yet we all are merry men, right fond of jest and laughter,
And, being bosom friends of Death, we fear not the hereafter.
From corpses stark we draw the brains, and cleanse with drugs delicious,
We purge the emptied bodies clean of mortal soilure vicious,
With costly palm-wine, sweetest oil and perfumes aromatic,
And fill the spirit of the clay with gratitude ecstatic.

We place within the silent flesh bruised myrrh, and salt, and spices,
Then press in natron seventy days, and while it rests, devices
Of subtle kind and rarest art we fashion for the mourners,
And all great Babylon knows well that we are skilled adorners.
When ready for our nimble touch, the litheness of our fingers,
Again the perfumed solid flesh in our deep work-house lingers,
And, smeared with gum and bandaged well, we place it in our cases,
And decorate with images of gods, and flowers, and places.
So, upright it is given to those who all it's worth did cherish,
To rest within its sepulcher until the earth shall perish!

Within the bandages we lay papyri, glass and agate,
To serve the dead on some far day and guard him from the maggot;
And scarabei, and amulets, with rings and bracelets golden,
We place beside the withered palms as is the custom olden,
For only bodies of the poor when washed, and boiled, and salted,
In common wood, in common clay, go up to the Exalted.
Of sacred animals we clean the crocodiles and lizards,
And send them to our temples vast for sale to priests and wizards,
With natroned fish and ibises, with serpents, apes and cattle,
And many a valiant warrior's horse that neighed out blood in battle.
We have perfumed the holy bulls, and many a cat and vulture
Will live until the world doth fall and by our fingers' culture,
And many dogs, and many rams, with curléd asps and foxes,
Remain immortal in their sleep within our scented boxes.
While in the mammoth temple overhead,
Whose pillars pierce the very flanks of heaven,
Old, withered men, grim guardians of the scrolls,
And manuscripts, and archives of the gods,
Stammer with toothless mouths, and feebly whine
Strange cadences to Assur-báni-pal.