The skies they were ashen and sober,
The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October,
Of my most immemorial year;
Like the skies I was perfectly sober,
As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,—
At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober,
And the willowy woodland, down here.
Here, once in an alley Titanic
Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,—