In the Days When the World Was Wide, and Other Verses

Dan, the Wreck

 Tall, and stout, and solid-looking,
  Yet a wreck;
 None would think Death's finger's hooking
  Him from deck.
 Cause of half the fun that's started —
  'Hard-case' Dan —
 Isn't like a broken-hearted,
  Ruined man.

 Walking-coat from tail to throat is
  Frayed and greened —
 Like a man whose other coat is
  Being cleaned;
 Gone for ever round the edging
  Past repair —
 Waistcoat pockets frayed with dredging
  After 'sprats' no longer there.

 Wearing summer boots in June, or
  Slippers worn and old —
 Like a man whose other shoon are
  Getting soled.
 Pants?  They're far from being recent —
  But, perhaps, I'd better not —
 Says they are the only decent
  Pair he's got.

 And his hat, I am afraid, is
  Troubling him —
 Past all lifting to the ladies
  By the brim.
 But, although he'd hardly strike a
  Girl, would Dan,
 Yet he wears his wreckage like a
  Gentleman!

 Once — no matter how the rest dressed —
  Up or down —
 Once, they say, he was the best-dressed
  Man in town.
 Must have been before I knew him —
  Now you'd scarcely care to meet
 And be noticed talking to him
  In the street.

 Drink the cause, and dissipation,
  That is clear —
 Maybe friend or kind relation
  Cause of beer.
 And the talking fool, who never
  Reads or thinks,
 Says, from hearsay:  'Yes, he's clever;
  But, you know, he drinks.'

 Been an actor and a writer —
  Doesn't whine —
 Reckoned now the best reciter
  In his line.
 Takes the stage at times, and fills it —
  'Princess May' or 'Waterloo'.
 Raise a sneer! — his first line kills it,
  'Brings 'em', too.

 Where he lives, or how, or wherefore
  No one knows;
 Lost his real friends, and therefore
  Lost his foes.
 Had, no doubt, his own romances —
  Met his fate;
 Tortured, doubtless, by the chances
  And the luck that comes too late.

 Now and then his boots are polished,
  Collar clean,
 And the worst grease stains abolished
  By ammonia or benzine:
 Hints of some attempt to shove him
  From the taps,
 Or of someone left to love him —
  Sister, p'r'aps.

 After all, he is a grafter,
  Earns his cheer —
 Keeps the room in roars of laughter
  When he gets outside a beer.
 Yarns that would fall flat from others
  He can tell;
 How he spent his 'stuff', my brothers,
  You know well.

 Manner puts a man in mind of
  Old club balls and evening dress,
 Ugly with a handsome kind of
  Ugliness.

      .    .    .    .    .

 One of those we say of often,
  While hearts swell,
 Standing sadly by the coffin:
  'He looks well.'

      .    .    .    .    .

 We may be — so goes a rumour —
  Bad as Dan;
 But we may not have the humour
  Of the man;
 Nor the sight — well, deem it blindness,
  As the general public do —
 And the love of human kindness,
  Or the GRIT to see it through!