Isaac Ball

Painting pictures

Worth nothing at all

In a dark cellar

Sits Isaac Ball.

Cobwebs on his butter,

Herrings in bed:

Stout matted in the hair

Of his poor cracked head.

There he paints Men's Thoughts

— Or so says he:

For in that cellar

It's too dark to see.

Isaac knew great men,

Poets and peers:

Treated crown-princes

To stouts and beers;

Some still visit him;

Pretend to buy

His unpainted pictures —

The Lord knows why.

His grey beard is woolly,

Eyes brown and wild:

Sticky things in his pocket

For anybody's child.

Someday he'll win fame,

— So Isaac boasts,

Lecturing half the night

To long-legged ghosts.

Isaac was young once:

At sixty-five

Still seduces more girls

Than any man alive.