So much foul-mouthed abuse must be due, I suppose,
To an impotent partisan spite.”
“You are old, William Ewart,” the young man cried,
And yet every year that you live,
You nearer approach to the Radical’s creed
What reason for this can you give?”
“In the days of my youth,” William Ewart replied,
“Of politics what could I know?
But now every year that I live, I contrive
Still wiser and wiser to grow.”