XV

O! Every day in pain unsung
I've toiled in mines so dark
The sight of eyes denied me
My colleagues blind beside me
We grope from rung to rung.

O! Every night in twinfold bed
This sight for sorer eyes
My sundry kin surround me
With anecdotes astound me
Belike to turn my head.

O! Constancy I cannot keep
With any but my wives
Though now I find them much too fat
And growing fonder of the bat
Which looms in gloom above my hat
(In which I often sleep)

O! Help me now my sight grows numb
A pension for my habit
I must restrain from drinking
From wining and from winking
And nibbling my thumb

I've toiled in mines so dark
These sights for sorer eyes
With strangled, wifely bark
My habits I despise.