Page:The Bab Ballads.djvu/68

 My favourite actor who, at will, With mimic woe my eyes could fill
 * With unaccustomed brine:

A being who appeared to me (Before I knew him well) to be
 * A song incarnadine;

I found a coarse unpleasant man With speckled chin—unhealthy, wan—
 * Of self-importance full:

Existing in an atmosphere That reeked of gin and pipes and beer—
 * Conceited, fractious, dull.

The warrior whose ennobled name Is woven with his country's fame,
 * Triumphant over all,

I found weak, palsied, bloated, blear; His province seemed to be, to leer
 * At bonnets in Pall Mall.

Would that ye always shone, who write, Bathed in your own innate lime-light,
 * And ye who battles wage,

Or that in darkness I had died Before my soul had ever sighed
 * To see you off the stage!