We saw the elder Corsican, 25 And Clotho muttered as she span, While crowned lackeys bore the train, Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne: "Sister, stint not length of thread! Sister, stay the scissors dread! 30 On Saint Helen's granite bleak, Hark, the vulture whets his beak!" Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, 35 The silent headsman waits forever. The Bonapartes, we know their bees That wade in honey red to the knees: Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound In dreamless garners underground: 40 We know false glory's spendthrift race Pawning nations for feathers and lace; It may be short, it may be long, "'Tis reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid Wrong. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 45 Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin Can promise what he ne'er could win; 50 Slavery reaped for fine words sown, System for all, and rights for none, Despots atop, a wild clan below, Such is the Gaul from long ago; Wash the black from the Ethiop's face, 55 Wash the past out of man or race! Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. 60 'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings,[25] And snares the people for the kings; "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake's black scars are healed with grass;" So dreamers prate; did man e'er live 65 Saw priest or woman yet forgive; But Luther's broom is left, and eyes Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! 70 In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent headsman waits forever. [Footnote 25: There was more than one Pope Gregory, but Gregory VII in the eleventh century brought the papacy to its supreme power, when kings humbled themselves before the Pope.]