Classic Poem

At midnight hour did Peter come,
Right well I knew his tap and tread;
With smiles I placed two pints of rum
Before him, and one cold sheephead.

How joy'd thy soul at sight of prog,
With wind thy belly long kept full!
Like reek, went glass on glass of grog,
Snick-snack, the sheephead is a skull !

And then O Peter what a gabble:
High birth, preferments, and so forth,
Thy race known since the Tower of Babel,
Those fam'd " Black Nimmos of the North " !

Should College honours from thee fly,
As Envy follows most the great,
Thou hadst an Earldom cut and dry,
In House of Peers couldst take thy seat.

There too wouldst think upon us all,
Wouldst be a friend without a marrow —
Good soul! He from his chair did fall
Dead-drunk: I sent him off in barrow.

Thus, solv'd in sheephead-juice and rum,
That soul's whole secret you might see:
His Essence (in strange menstruum),
Like yours and mine, was — Vanity .