Classic Poem

What Penk could not have done, his friends can't think!
If he'd stop dissipating (say his friends)
He still might use great means to famous ends …
One gift he surely has, that none may blink:
He coins a pinchbeck halo into drink
And from false glamour wrings wet dividends,
Hinting, that for his past to do amends,
He'll make the startled future gasp and wink.

Penk dares not sober up, but craftily
Stays drunk lest life should put him to the proof …
What starts these strange tales of ability
In dolts who've held themselves from work aloof?
This one's the prince, the king, of might-have-beens,
And might have been twice nothing, were he twins.