Till, bald and grey and middle-aged, we watch with childish glee
The very games we learned long since at our dead mother's knee.
There's not a bar of Hänsel's part that's not exactly right;
There's not a note from Gretel that's not a pure delight;
And having heard it lately for (I think) the fifteenth time,
I know I'm talking reason though it happens to be rhyme.
Then let us thank our lucky stars that in a squalid age,
When horror, blood, and ugliness so many pens engage,
One of our master-minstrels, by fashion unbeguiled,