Gregory Maitland came to Moorgate

when the gate was there.

 

He carved his name with a miniature pick

in a hospital for the sick

for syphillus had laid him low

took his mind beyond repair

 

He'd gone with a doxy lustily dressed

as many did with their spirits depressed

 

and paid the price for paradise

 

and the sick they went on dying.

 

The crowds were often crying

in their blinded garrets

in London Town

 

Migrants filled the pressing streets

to seek a living where commerce meets

with need and shadows of dark dismay.

 

            Gregory Maitland was later discovered

            in skeletal form one distant day

            four centuries passing,  the hospital gone

            foundations revealed

            old wounds unhealed.

 

Archaeologists scraped the clay

to see the tiny mark he'd made

and they laid him out on a stainless table

assembling his bones like a jigsaw fable

 

then in with the camera swooping and snooping

on the silly facial grin that said:

"you've had your fill of me -

now build your palaces once again

on pits or undercroft,

and don't look down on the likes of me

 

for my spirit flies aloft."