Classic Poem

At Viscount Nelson's lavish funeral,
While the mob milled and yelled about St Paul's,
A General chatted with an Admiral:

" One of your Colleagues, Sir, remarked today
That Nelson's exit , though to be lamented,
Falls not inopportunely, in its way."

" He was Athorn in our flesh," came the reply —
" The most bird-witted, unaccountable,
Odd little runt that ever I did spy.

" One arm, one peeper, vain as Pretty Poll,
A meddler, too, in foreign politics
And gave his heart in pawn to a plain moll.

" He would dare lecture us Sea Lords, and then
Would treat his ratings as though men of honour
And play at leap-frog with his midshipmen!

" We tried to box him down, but up he popped,
And when he'd banged Napoleon at the Nile
Became too much the hero to be dropped.

" You've heard that Copenhagen " blind eye " story?
We'd tied him to Nurse Parker's apron-strings —
By G — — d, he snipped them through and snatched the glory!"

" Yet," cried the General, " six-and-twenty sail
Captured or sunk by him off Trafalgar —
That writes a handsome finis to the tale."

" Handsome enough. The seas are England's now.
That fellow's foibles need no longer plague us.
He died most creditably, I'll allow."

" And, Sir, the secret of his victories?"
" By his unServicelike, familiar ways, Sir,
He made the whole Fleet love him, damn his eyes!"