Heady as wine, a mischief-making mead,
Which—though a man find every known excuse for ’em—
To put it mildly, does the very deuce for ’em.
And shall my sweetest Muse, than whom none chaster
E’er fluttered to console the middle-age-time
Of any neurasthenic poetaster,
Ope her full throat to sing Jill’s ’prentice rage-time?—
The unnerving doubts, the certainties which braced her,
The follied moments and the ensuing sage time,
The major and the minor bards who sung to her,