And lit up his pipe with a smile on his cheek;
While with eye like a skipper’s cock’d up at the weather,
Sat the Vice-Chairman Browning, thinking in Greek.
“The company gather’d embraced great and small bards,
Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave,
Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards,
Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave.
Of books, men, and things, was the bards’ conversation—
Some praised Ecce Homo, some deemed it so-so—
And then there was talk of the state of the nation,