"Weep no more, gentle shepherds, weep no more;
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be upon a garret floor,
With fumes of Morpheus' crown about his head."
"Fumes of Morpheus' crown?" asked Thurnall.
"That crimson flower which crowns the sleepy god,
And sweeps the soul aloft, though flesh may nod."
"He has taken to opium!" said Thurnall to the bewildered Major. "What I should have expected."
"God help him! we must save him out of that last lowest deep!" cried
Campbell. "Where is he, sir?"
"A vow! a vow! I have a vow in heaven!
Why guide the hounds toward the trembling hare?
Our Adonais hath drunk poison; Oh!
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe?"
"As I live, sir," cried Campbell, losing his self-possession in disgust at the fool; "you may rhyme your own nonsense as long as you will, but you shan't quote the Adonais about that fellow in my presence."
Mr. Barker shook himself fiercely free of Campbell's arm, and faced round at him in a fighting attitude. Campbell stood eyeing him sternly, but at his wit's end.
"Mr. Barker," said Tom blandly, "will you have another glass of brandy and water, or shall I call a policeman?"
"Sir," sputtered he, speaking prose at last, "this gentleman has insulted me! He has called my poetry nonsense, and my friend a fellow. And blood shall not wipe out—what liquor may?"