More kicks than half-pence—and, when asked for more,
Showed him the street, and kicked him into it
With turned-up toe, saying “Begone and starve!”
He sought relief in vain, for in those days
Were no “relieving officers”—his thoughts
Turned to his childhood’s home, far, far away,
Embowered in tufted trees where cooed the dove,
Where sang a chorus sweet of jenny-wrens,
Tom-tits, and gay cock-sparrows—and he said,
“It must be so—farewel, ambitious dreams,”