Dear Sir, you remember, when Herod of Jewry
Had given a ball, how a shocking old fury
Demanded, so bent was the vixen on slaughter.
The head of St. John at the hand of her daughter:
Now do not detest me, nor hold me in dread,
Because, like King Herod, I send you a head:
Not a saint's, by-the-bye, although taken from life,
But a head of my friend, by the hand of my wife.