Page:The Bab Ballads.djvu/44

42 The only line to fitly grace My humble tomb, when I've run my race, Is, "Reader, this is the resting place
 * Of an unsuccessful duffer."

I've fought them all, these ghosts of mine, But the weapons I've used are sighs and brine, And now that I'm nearly forty-nine,
 * Old age is my chiefest bogy;

For my hair is thinning away at the crown, And the silver fights with the worn-out brown; And a general verdict sets me down
 * As an irreclaimable fogy.