W.H.L. Barnes

Happy the man who sin's proverbial wage Receives on the instalment plan--in age. For him the bulldog pistol's honest bark Has naught of terror in its blunt remark. He looks with calmness on the gleaming steel-- If e'er it touched his heart he did not feel: Superior hardness turned its point away, Though urged by fond affinity to stay; His bloodless veins ignored the futile stroke, And moral mildew kept the cut in cloak. Happy the man, I say, to whom the wage Of sin has been commuted into age. Yet not quite happy--hark, that horrid cry!-- His cruel mirror wounds him in the eye!