My sight grew dim, and my tongue was tied,
And I thought of my home, and my sweet fireside,
And the friends I had left at loo!

And I took once more a hurried peep
Along and across the street,
And then I beheld a figure creep,
Like a man that is walking in his sleep,
Or a watchman on his beat.

A lantern, dangling in the wind,
He bore, and his shaggy and thick
Great-coat was one of the dread-nought kind,--
What seem'd his right hand trail'd behind
The likeness of a stick.

The sky with clouds became o'ercast,
And it suddenly set to raining,--
And the gas-lights flicker'd in the blast,
As that thing of the lantern and dread-nought past,
And I heard him thus complaining--

"A murrain seize--a pize upon--
Plague take--the New Police!
Why couldn't they do with the ancient one,
As ages and ages before have done,
And let us remain in peace?

"No more, ah! never more, I fear,
Will a perquisite, (woe is me!)