Made impious pretence that Jove with him,

Unseen, walk’d, talk’d and jested; for he spoke

To nothing by his side; or frown’d; or broke

In answering smiles; or shook a playful rim

Of raiment coyly. ‘Earth,’ he said, ‘is mine?—

No vapour. Yet Caligula, brother Jove,

Will love thee if he find thee worthy love;

If not, his solid powers shall war with thine

And break them, God of Cloud.’ The courtiers round,

As in the presence of two deities, bent

In servile scorn: when, like a warning sent,

An utterance of earthquake shook the ground,

Awful, but which no human meaning bore.

With glaring eyeballs narrowing in dismay,

The huddled creature fallen foaming lay,

Glass’d in the liquid marbles of the floor.

1881-2.