Oh, 'tis well that I should bluster,—much I'm like to make of that;
Better comfort have I found in singing "All Around my Hat."
But that song, so wildly plaintive, palls upon my British ears.
'Twill not do to pine for ever,—I am getting up in years.
Can't I turn the honest penny, scribbling for the weekly press,
And in writing Sunday libels drown my private wretchedness?
Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn I knew,
When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two!
When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide,