Here he arrived in front of number seven,
Th’ abode of all his joy and all his pain;
A sudden tremor shot through every vein,
He wish’d he’d come up by the heavy waggon,
And felt an impulse to turn back again,
Oh, that he ne’er had quitted the Old Dragon!
Then came a sort of longing for a flagon.
His tongue and palate seem’d so parch’d with drouth,—
The very knocker fill’d his soul with dread,
As if it had a living lion’s mouth,