CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE

‘ Twas in a tavern that with old age stooped

And leaned rheumatic rafters o'er his head —

A blowzed, prodigious man, which talked, and stared,

And rolled, as if with purpose, a small eye

Like a sweet Cupid in a cask of wine.

I could not view his fatness for his soul,

Which peeped like harmless lightnings and was gone;

As haps to voyagers of the summer air.

And when he laughed, Time trickled down those beams,

As in a glass; and when in self-defence

He puffed that paunch, and wagged that huge, Greek head,

Nosed like a Punchinello, then it seemed

An hundred widows swept in his small voice,

Now tenor, and now bass of drummy war.

He smiled, compact of loam, this orchard man;

Mused like a midnight, webbed with moonbeam snares

Of flitting Love; woke — and a King he stood,

Whom all the world hath in sheer jest refused

For helpless laughter's sake. And then, forfend!

Bacchus and Jove reared vast Olympus there;

And Pan leaned leering from Promethean eyes.

“Lord!” sighed his aspect, weeping o'er the jest,

“What simple mouse brought such a mountain forth?”