Show them a tragic scene, foreseeing how

The incongruence of time and place, the audience

Of drunken sots would turn my best to worst,

And smother passion in a sea of laughter.

But, for the wine I had been constrained to taste

Had mounted to my head, I felt at heart

A force to wither up their sottish jeers,

And ere I knew my purpose I was sitting

Upright upon the couch, and with full passion

Singing the old Greek song thou saidst so well