undaunted,
By their ghosts you must he haunted. Take a Blue-pill, I implore!
When our Army meets the foe it's bound to lick him as of yore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!

"Prophet!" said I, "that's uncivil. You may go to--well, the devil!
That Establishments are 'short,' and 'standards' lowered o'er and
o'er.
That mere 'weeds,' with chests of maiden, cannot march with
knapsack laden;
That the heat of sultry Aden, or the cold of Labrador,
Such can't stand, _may_ be the truth; but keep it dark, bird, I
implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

"Then excuse me, we'll be parting, doleful fowl," I cried,
upstarting;
"Get thee back to--the Red River, or the Nile's sand-cumbered shore!
Leave no 'Magazine' as token of the twaddle you have spoken.
What? BRITANNIA stoney-broken? Quit her bust above my door.
Take thy hook from the War Office; take thy beak from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

And the Raven still is sitting, croaking statements most unfitting,
On BRITANNIA's much-peeled bust that's placed above my Office-door,
And if _Pangloss_, e'en in seeming, lent an ear to his dark
dreaming,
Useless were official scheming, grants of millions by the score,
For my soul were like the shadow that he casts upon the floor,
Dark and dismal evermore!