The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
He call’d for his candle, his bell, and his book:
In holy anger, and pious grief,
He solemnly curs’d that rascally thief!
He curs’d him at board, he curs’d him in bed,
From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head!
He curs’d him in sleeping, that every night
He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;
He curs’d him in eating, he curs’d him in drinking,
He curs’d him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He curs’d him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He curs’d him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He curs’d him in living, he curs’d him in dying!
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise
To no little surprise,
Nobody seem’d one penny the worse!

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore;
The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore!

'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory.

He was a man
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven
To serve the Devil in.

He who maligns an absent friend's fair fame,
Who says no word for him when others blame,
Who courts a reckless laugh by random hits,
Just for the sake of ranking among wits,
Who feigns what he ne'er saw, a secret blabs,
Beware him, Roman! that man steals or stabs!

How great his theft, who robs himself!

Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.

Why would he do that?"
"Because he is insane, a fool, a man so devious they will have to guard his corpse after he dies, or he'll steal it himself!

One! two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snickersnack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed;

Some contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch ...

"Son," he said, "one day he caught himself on one of his own traps and no one would assist him to get free. Hist own people scorned him, and turned their backs on him. He grew weaker and weaker, and finally toppled over to die upon the land which he had marred with such blood. The birds came and extracted their revenge by picking his eyes out, and the larks sang like they never sang before."

His eyes were almost sunken in his head;
His face was thin and fleshless as a bone.
His tangled, bristling hair, inspiring dread,
And shaggy beard were wild to look upon.