Public, forgive your fool; if now and then—
Black bubbles on the verse’s stream—appear
Thoughts of our worn, unlettered fighting-men;
If sometimes, through the grease-paint’s gay veneer,
Truth shews—a wrinkled hag. The traitor pen
Forgets how blood is cheap and paper dear:
And I’m no more the blithe, nut-loving squirrel
Who frisked it in the consulship of Birrell.
Which is, perchance, the reason why my mind
Turns oft to those dear days, now dead as mutton;