As an outsider I forbear,
Fearing to be misunderstood.
Fain would I use my gift of tact
And take a mediatorial line,
But shrewdly recognise the fact
That this is no affair of mine.
Yet may I venture to deplore
A great tradition cheaply prized,
And yonder, on the Elysian shore,
The ghost of Gladstone scandalised.