The Death of a Despot

The Death of a Despot By Elton Camp Eternal vigilance is said to be the price of liberty It’s also the price of despotism as we just did see Eventually, even ones a dictator does bully or hire Get their fill and against him they will conspire He who lives in such luxury and power on one day May suddenly find his life has moved another way Neither fancy cars nor the most elegant of palace Help when he must drink from the poisoned chalice The despot flees to his hometown for his protection Thinking there he will prove able to avoid detection When the avengers come about to pound on his door He desperately tries to escape the fate he does abhor So many others he has killed without any pity at all It’s different when on him the Grim Reaper does call His caravan is attacked as it sweeps grandly along The despot shouts, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Into a concrete pipe underneath the road he will dive In a last-ditch effort that he might somehow stay alive “Don’t shoot me, my sons,” he does fearfully cry But it is on that dreaded day he finds he must die Perhaps the wisest ancient writings he should have read It tells the killer it is by man that his blood will be shed