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Tall, and stout, and solid-looking,

Yet a wreck;

None would think Death’s finger’s hooking

Him from deck.

Cause of half the fun that’s started—

Hard-case Dan—

Isn’t like a broken-hearted,

Ruined man.

Walking-coat from tail to throat is

Frayed and greened—

Like a man whose other coat is

Being cleaned;

Gone for ever round the edging

Past repair—

Waistcoat pockets frayed with dredging

After “sprats” no longer there.

Wearing summer boots in June, or

Slippers worn and old—

Like a man whose other shoon are

Getting soled.

Pants? They’re far from being recent—

But, perhaps, I’d better not—

Says they are the only decent

Pair he’s got.

And his hat, I am afraid, is

Troubling him—

Past all lifting to the ladies

By the brim.

But, although he’d hardly strike a

Girl, would Dan,

Yet he wears his wreckage like a

Gentleman!

Once—no matter how the rest dressed—

Up or down—

Once, they say, he was the best-dressed

Man in town.

Must have been before I knew him—

Now you’d scarcely care to meet

And be noticed talking to him

In the street.

Drink the cause, and dissipation,

That is clear—

Maybe friend or kind relation

Cause of beer.

And the talking fool, who never

Reads or thinks,

Says, from hearsay: “Yes, he’s clever;

But, you know, he drinks.”

Where he lives, or how, or wherefore

No one knows;

Lost his real friends, and therefore

Lost his foes.

Had, no doubt, his own romances—

Met his fate;

Tortured, doubtless, by the chances

And the luck that comes too late.

Now and then his boots are polished,

Collar clean,

And the worst grease stains abolished

By ammonia or benzine:

Hints of some attempt to shove him

From the taps,

Or of someone left to love him—

Sister, p’r’aps.

After all, he is a grafter,

Earns his cheer—

Keeps the room in roars of laughter

When he gets outside a beer.

Yarns that would fall flat from others

He can tell;

How he spent his stuff, my brothers,

You know well.

Manner puts a man in mind of

Old club balls and evening dress,

Ugly with a handsome kind of

Ugliness.

One of those we say of, grimly,

At the morgue—or mean hotel

Where they hold the inquests dimly:

“He looked well!”

* * * * * * * * * *

I may be—so goes a rumour—

Bad as Dan;

But I have not got the humour

Of the man;

Nor the sight—well, deem it blindness,

As the general public do—

And the love of human kindness,

Or thegritto see it through!