II + 

I saw a dead corpse in a haughty car, + 

Whom in a high tomb phantom horses bore, + 

Aye to and fro upon the scatter’d floor; + 

His dead eyes star’d as though they look’d afar, + 

His gold wheels myriad perish’d souls did mar, + 

While through his flesh the ravenous wormlets tore; + 

He in whose eyes the worm was conqueror, + 

Held his high head unmoved like a star. + 

And as with loud sound and reverberant jar, + 

And as with splash of crusht flesh and dull roar, + 

The death-car thunder’d past the tomb-walls hoar, + 

Within those dead dominions the dead tsar + 

Receiv’d his plaudits where dead bodies are; + 

And in his heart the worms lie evermore. + 