So little fain to chatter with the great,

So blind, or single-eyed, they did not see

Ali-el-Kerbelaï, even me.

"Poor souls! Dusk swamps our wriggling thoroughfares

Like trenches; and I rub my hands to think

How I to-night in coolth shall sleep and drink,

While sunrise takes these vagrants unawares.

Madmen set out each day to beard the sun,

And seventy years ago Your Slave was one.

"When all the world was young, that is when I