You raked the ashes of our faded flames,

And you may take your oath he won’t be still

If once I mutter but a syllable

Against the brazen bluster of his claims.

These civil-service gentlemen, they say,

Are very potent in the press to-day.

A trumpery paragraph can lay me low,

Once printed in that Samson-like Gazette

That with the jaw of asses fells its foe,

And runs away with tackle and with net,