I'm sure I can feel a cool whiff of fresh air!

Mental malaria worse than the grippe

Has asphyxiated my mind, or choke-damped it.

The plain honest truth has been strange to my lip;

I've shammed it, and fudged it, humbugged it and vamped it

Till I wasn't I, self-respect was all gone,

And I hadn't a taste that I dared call my own.

I do not love horror. I do not like muck;

And mystical muddle to me is abhorrent.

In Stygian shallows long time I have stuck,