Rex Nullae (King no more)

Oh, mine wretched, sulking king...
Why art ye so rent?
Is it because thy pudding is too sweet?
Thy cake too rich?
Thy syrup too thick for thee?

Woe, the miseries of kingship!
Would'st thine servant not rubbeth thy feet with precious oil
nor fetchest thy meals quickly?
Have the taxes not yet been divided within thine glorious estate?
Are they those taxes which thou hast usurped from the poor who art
without?
Are not such people in thine eyes, peasants and pitiable at which
ye scoff? Are they not cast into poverty by thee,
barren and suffering within thine own mighty kingdom?
Oh, but how should thine kingdom rise against thee!
And then how they would vigil therein and rebel and reject
thee and spew thee from their mouths in ire, and force pain upon thee!
And verily, thy yoke of guardsmen would have not the strength nor
desire nor riches to defendeth thee against them.
For thou hast shewn them as little mercy.

Would thou therefore become timid and cowardly and flee
with thine corpulent, fragile buttocks from their clutches?
Would thou therefore seek the darkest corner and cowardly weep into
it and cry vainly for mercy? Or would thine noble corpulence stand
for a righteous, noble death, or even imprisonment in thine own
dungeon wherein thou hast tortured good men indebted of but a
pound to thy royal treasury?
If thou had seen the faces of the tormented, as their toes were
removed and their eyes gouged, scorched and bleeding with hot oil,
then ye might have spared a moment of mercy and forgiveness, and
released them, only distraught, crippled and suffering. But yet
hiddest thou thine ears and shaded thine eyes from them and fled
thy tail to sit upon it's golden throne, and watched none and heard
none and felt pity for none who would suffer in thy dungeon, helpless
and wailing and swearing. Yet ye sat uncaring with the beast of gluttony
at thy table, and slept with the devil's soul in thy chamber, worthy
not even of thyself.
Yea, even so, God have pity on thee, my king.
God have pity on thy wealth. For thy throne shall be succeeded and thy
castle walls therefore crumble, and the oppressed shall break thy
yoke and have rule over thee. They shall seize thine kingdom and
rejoice therein and share in thy precious wealth and in thy castle
and in thine hide as well. Flogged ye shall be and stoned
relentlessly until ye hast at last expired of life.

So from the heretic, do lock thyself away in the deepest
corridor and makest thyself unseen. For the time is nigh wherefore
ye shall be removed and persecuted.
May mine own sword pierce thine throat lest ye never succumb to the
evils ye hast lain upon the people.
Else may you kneel before the umbrage of the poor, and before
this dying kingdom and before the guillotine.

ATS
2/10/91