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This poem is taken from PN Review 98, Volume 20 Number 6, July - August 1994.

Casper Hauser: the last six cantos David Constantine

Fourth Canto

Philip Henry Stanhope
1 March 1855



I
Stanhope, Philip Henry, the Fourth Earl,
Dying abroad nowhere particular
I wish to be shipped home like an admiral

In brandy, I have a longing
To enter the mouth of the Thames on a flood tide
And settle alongside

Eleanor Mary, my poor wife, the children
Lawfully issued between her narrow hips,
Henry Philip, Mary Eleanor Ann,

There being no bastards, I can swear to it,
And Caspar dead without issue,
Dead and beyond amends, if they will pay my transit
...


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