What tears of sympathy are flowing from me
To learn that you have fallen on evil times!
Yea, to my mind 'tis little short of tragic
That men no longer buy your potent spheres of magic!
Scarce less detested than the Bulgar bullet
Your bitter pellets of Quin. Sulph. gr. 5
Have often stuck in my long-suffering gullet,
Leaving me barely more than half alive,
Whilst the accursed drug, whose taste I dread,
Hummed like an aeroplane within my throbbing head.