But gives the sweetest zest to the unholy tale.

What wonder if the Horror, homaged thus
By frenzied eagerness and foolish fuss,
Swells to a hideous self-importance, struts
In conscious dignity, and gladly gluts
With vanity's fantastic tricks the herd
Whose pulses first by murderous crime it stirred.
Narcissus-like, the slayer bends to trace
Within Sensation's flowing stream its face,
And, self-enamoured, smiles a loathsome smile
Of fatuous conceit and gloating guile;
Laughs at the shadow of the lifted knife,
And thinks of all things save its victim's life.
The "Noisy Nymph," the Echo of our times,
The gossip, with an eager ear for crimes,
Lurks, half-admiring, all-recording there,
Watching Narcissus with persistent stare,
And ready note-book. Nothing but a Voice?
No, but its babblings travel, and rejoice
A myriad prurient ears with noisome news,
Fit only for the shambles and the stews.
These hear, admire, and sometimes imitate!--

Narcissus is a danger to the State,
And Echo hardly less. Vain-glorious crime;
That pestilent portent of a morbid time,
Would flourish less could sense or law avail
To strangle coarse Sensation's clamorous tale,
Silence the "Noisy Nymph," for half crime's ill