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He first sank to the bottom—like his works,
But soon rose to the surface—like himself;

525

For all corrupted things are buoyed like corks,
By their own rottenness, light as an elf,
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he lurks,
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf,
In his own den, to scrawl some “Life” or “Vision,”
As Welborn says—“the Devil turned precisian.”
 

A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then floats, as most people know.