These are for porters, loafers, and the scum,
Who have no sense for the diviner weeds,
Who drink their muddy beer and muddier rum,
Insatiate, like dogs in all their greeds.

But not for thee nor me these things obscene;
We have a higher pleasure, purer taste.
My draughts have been with thee of hippocrene,
And our delights intelligent and chaste.


IV.

Intelligent and chaste since we have held
Commune together on the world's highway;
No Falstaff failings have my mind impelled
To do misdeeds of sack by night or day;

But we have ever erred on virtue's side--
At least we should have done--but woe is me!
I fear in this my statement I have lied,
For ghosts, like moonlight shadows on the sea,

Crowd thick around me from the shadowy past,--
Ghosts of old memories reeling drunk with wine!
And boon companions, Lysius-like, and vast
In their proportions as the god divine.

I do confess my sins, and here implore
The aid of "Rare Old Ben" and other ghosts