With “form” maintainers—these must let him pass,
Vanish in Limbo’s gloom, sink in Despair’s morass.
Scattered his substance, linked life, honour, all
With—what? A thing that silence fain must shroud,
“Gone to the bad, poor beggar! What a fall!”
“Under the very dingiest kind of cloud.”
“Thought he was ’cuter, or at least more proud.”
“Yes—regular church and ring affair, a craze
Most melancholy,—can’t be squared, too loud!”
So cackle they, in vague slang-garnished phrase,