A Queen of indolence and idle grace,
Robed in the vestments of a costly gown,
She turns the languor of her lovely face
Upon progression with a lazy frown.
Her throne is built upon a marshy down;
Malarial mosses wreathe her like old lace;
With slim crossed feet, unshod and bare and brown.
She sits indifferent to the world’ s swift race.
Across the seas there stalks an ogre grim:
Too languid she for even fear’ s alarms,
While frightened nations rally in defence,
She lifts her smiling Creole eyes to him,
And reaching out her shapely unwashed arms,
She clasps her rightful lover — Pestilence.