We should be dazed and terror-struck,
If we but saw in dreams that room,
Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck
That emptied all our days to come.
I knew a woman none could please,
Because she dreamed when but a child
Of men and women made like these;
And after, when her blood ran wild,
Had ravelled her own story out,
And said, ‘In two or in three years
I needs must marry some poor lout,’
And having said it, burst in tears.
Since, tavern comrades, you have died,
Maybe your images have stood,
Mere bone and muscle thrown aside,
Before that roomful or as good.
You had to face your ends when young—
‘Twas wine or women, or some curse—
But never made a poorer song
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.
You kept the Muses’ sterner laws,
And unrepenting faced your ends,
And therefore earned the right—and yet
Dowson and Johnson42 most I praise—
To troop with those the world’s forgot,
And copy their proud steady gaze.

‘The Danish troop was driven out
Between the dawn and dusk,’ she said;
Although the event was long in doubt,
Although the King of Ireland’s dead
And half the kings, before sundown
All was accomplished.

‘When this day