To sit—aye, and doze, in that Grand Old Chair!
“But as years rolled on, and the sessions sped,
My idol was shattered, my hopes all fled:
For there came o’er the scene a parlous change,
As the new M.P.’s brought their manners strange;
Till one night, alas! was ‘Obstruction’ born,
And I knew what it was to sit till morn;
Ah! I learned what a Speaker’s strength could bear,
As I sat out my life in that Grand Old Chair.
“’Tis past! ’tis past! but I gaze on it now