For ennui is a growth of English root,

Though nameless in our language: we retort

The fact for words, and let the French translate

That awful yawn which sleep cannot abate.

The elderly walk’d through the library,

And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures,

Or saunter’d through the gardens piteously,

And made upon the hothouse several strictures;

Or rode a nag which trotted not too high,

Or on the morning papers read their lectures;