The Grand-Vizier’s Daughter 

1

Good God, to rhyme from day to day
And know your life depends upon it!
If I could get even an hour alone
    To sit with the great Grand Vizier's daughter!
But I must sing Sultan Mahomet to sleep,
    And a wakeful lord is our Lord Mahomet;
Oh, I must sing Sultan Mahomet to sleep, 
    And she has already too many to court her; 
        And when I cease my singing to sigh, 
        The axe will fall and so shall I. 


2 

Verse! But, Christ, I'm sick of verse,
I’d sooner this minute be stretched on a hearse
With four grave bibulous mutes to bury me
And a portly priest with a printed breviary;
And then I would ask no more grace of the Lord
Than that she should look out as we passed up the road.
And she to be perched on a new lover’s knee,
And to sigh with that pensive, sweet, casual air, 
"He is gone as all mortal things go, even we!"
And “Vanity passes!” and “Earth is our share!”



Source: O'Connor, Frank; Three Old Brothers and Other Poems; 1936;
London; Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.; p.25