Ye comrades in shicker and cobbers in sin,
Ye wrecks from the ranks of life’s crew,
Who’ve tickled each barmaid under the chin
And frivolled with nymphs in the Rue;
Who’ve painted the town a magnificent red
(All impressionist artists, I trow),
Look here, in the light of the aftermath shed,
Say, what do you think of it now?
Oh, you’ve had a gay and a festive debauch
In regions where sanity reels,
With Bacchus, wine-laden, ahead with his torch,
And Nemesis close at your heels.
And little you recked, as the glamour of wine
Smoothed the lines of Life’s puckering brow—
But own up and tell me, old cobbers of mine,
Say, what do you think of it now?
You’ve made the pace willing in numberless bars,
You have sung, and recited, and yapped;
You have slept a drunk’s sleep ’neath the pitying stars,
You have squandered and borrowed and strapped—
You have struck every note, the sublime to the lewd,
But, alas, from Despondency’s slough,
May I ask in a friendly and brotherly mood,
Say, what do you think of it now?
You have played the pied piper and danced the fool’s dance
’Mid the smiles of well-ballasted men
(By-and-by, when the devil is better perchance
You will cut the same caper again.)
But now, as you bare your scant locks to the blast,
And re-register vow upon vow,
May I ask, as a brother—the month that is past—
Say, what do you think of it now?
[Decoration: Gold miner with dolly pot]