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Ay! hardy looks they even dared on your ward-
-robe, king, to fix, and murmured ever bolder,
‘We’re out at elbows, our broadcloth’s all rusty,
There on the shelves by thousands fine suits moulder,
And moths are pasturing on those samets musty.’
“Ah! ha! methought, the social crisis: full sure
We’ll lay the knife to this corrupting ulcer:
Lynx-eyed I watched: chastised with knout and rope-end,
Only at last my eyes were fully opened.
“In base degraded souls ’tis deep implanted
The will to bring all down to their soiled level;
In others, if the ideals they once vaunted
Their breath of scorn can tarnish, how they revel!
Thus e’en this worn-out riff-raff of the slum
Against the well-to-do beats loud the drum,
And neat, well-kept costumes with venom acrid
Reviles, and all things which to us are sacred.
One of them sat to-day ’mid yon birth-wort’s leaves,
High o’er the public highway, in his shirtsleeves,
A public scandal ’twas to see the varlet:
(The schoolgirl apes, who just then with their mistress
Passed two and two that way, all blushed quite scarlet
Behind their fans, poor things, with shame and distress.)
Ay, worse—disgust mine utterance chokes—this fellow—
The Tartar—a bird’s nest upon his lap held
And made a fine feast off the egglets dappled,
Sucking their raw contents with lips all yellow.
“And when I would have chid the cool-faced rascal
He rounded on me thus: To prate is easy
In purple frock and ruffs; but look here, please ye,
Who’d recognise a human suit, I ask all,
Here in the sorry relics of my blouse?
