Come, boon companions, all of you
Who (woodcock-like) exist by suction,
Uplift your teeming tankards to
The great Professor of Deduction!
Who is he? You shall shortly see
If (Watson-like) you "follow me."
In London (on the left-hand side
As you go in), stands Baker Street,
Exhibited with proper pride
By all policemen on the beat,
As housing one whose predilection
Is private criminal detection.
The malefactor's apt disguise
Presents to him an easy task;
His placid, penetrating eyes
Can pierce the most secretive mask;
And felons ask a deal too much
Who fancy to elude his clutch.
No slender or exiguous clew
Too paltry for his needs is found;
No knot too stubborn to undo,
No prey too swift to run to ground;
No road too difficult to travel,
No skein too tangled to unravel.
For Holmes the ash of a cigar,
A gnat impinging on his eye,
Possess a meaning subtler far
Than humbler mortals can descry.
A primrose at the river's brim
No simple primrose is to him!
To Holmes a battered Brahma key,
Combined with blurred articulation,
Displays a man's capacity
For infinite ingurgitation;
Obliquity of moral vision
Betrays the civic politician.
I had an uncle, who possessed
A marked resemblance to a bloater,
Whom Sherlock, by deduction, guessed
To be the victim of a motor;
Whereas, his wife (or so he swore)
Had merely shut him in the door!
My brother's nose, whose hectic hue
Recalled the sun-kissed autumn leaf,
Though friends attributed it to
Some secret or domestic grief,
Revealed to Holmes his deep potations,
And not the loss of loved relations!
I had a poodle, short and fat,
Who proved a conjugal deceiver;
Her offspring were a Maltese Cat,
Two Dachshunds and a pink retriever!
Her husband was a pure-bred Skye;
And Sherlock Holmes alone knew why!