“You are old, William Ewart,” the young man cried,

“And life must be fleeting away,

Yet you stick to your post, and refuse to take rest;

Now, what is your reason I pray?”

“I stick to my post,” William Ewart replied,

“Because a great work I’ve begun,

And mean not to rest, though the peers do their worst,

Until that great work I have done.”

Truth, 1884.