The Bishop's Bones

THE BISHOP’S BONES by Morgan Thomson

And Ian Thomson

The starving, dying people beg for food

But the bishop will not feed them, though he could.

He calls them rats and laughs at their distress;

Eats supper, goes to bed on soft mattress.
 

But scarcely do his eyes close in deep sleep

When from the shadows rats begin to creep

Throughout the palace rooms echo his screams

But no guard can be roused from troubled dreams
.

The rats feed well upon fat bishop’s corpse

Gnawing skin and meat and bones and worse

They leave before the sun lights up the room

With bedroom now a bone-embellished tomb.
 

A servant finds the bishop’s scattered bones

He stares and stares and gives a heartfelt groan

The servant leaves, returning with a broom

And sweeps bones into a heap in haunted room