There were clowns who the grave-digger clown could outvie,

And princes who on the stage strutted so high

That Prince Hamlet they’d cut; who could pick up a scull,

Vote his morals a bore, and his wit mighty dull!

There were spirits that roam in the caves of the deep,

Coming back to our earth, as ghosts will do, to peep!

A king of the Cannibals—warriors, a host;

And a city with domes, mid the dim waters lost:

There was some one descended from Brian Boru;

For Pleasaunce a hunchback, in French ‘Un Tortu;’