Dan, The Wreck

Tall, and stout, and solid-looking,     Yet a wreck;     None would think Death's finger's hooking     Him from deck.     Cause of half the fun that's started,     `Hard-case' Dan,     Isn't like a broken-hearted,     Ruined man.     Walking-coat from tail to throat is     Frayed and greened,     Like a man whose other coat is     Being cleaned;     Gone for ever round the edging     Past repair,     Waistcoat pockets frayed with dredging     After `sprats' no longer there.     Wearing summer boots in June, or     Slippers worn and old,     Like a man whose other shoon are     Getting soled.     Pants? They're far from being recent,     But, perhaps, I'd better not,     Says they are the only decent     Pair he's got.     And his hat, I am afraid, is     Troubling him,     Past all lifting to the ladies     By the brim.     But, although he'd hardly strike a     Girl, would Dan,     Yet he wears his wreckage like a     Gentleman!     Once, no matter how the rest dressed,     Up or down,     Once, they say, he was the best-dressed     Man in town.     Must have been before I knew him,     Now you'd scarcely care to meet     And be noticed talking to him     In the street.     Drink the cause, and dissipation,     That is clear,     Maybe friend or kind relation     Cause of beer.     And the talking fool, who never     Reads or thinks,     Says, from hearsay: `Yes, he's clever;     But, you know, he drinks.'     Been an actor and a writer,     Doesn't whine,     Reckoned now the best reciter     In his line.     Takes the stage at times, and fills it,     `Princess May' or `Waterloo'.     Raise a sneer!, his first line kills it,     `Brings 'em', too.     Where he lives, or how, or wherefore     No one knows;     Lost his real friends, and therefore     Lost his foes.     Had, no doubt, his own romances,     Met his fate;     Tortured, doubtless, by the chances     And the luck that comes too late.     Now and then his boots are polished,     Collar clean,     And the worst grease stains abolished     By ammonia or benzine:     Hints of some attempt to shove him     From the taps,     Or of someone left to love him,     Sister, p'r'aps.     After all, he is a grafter,     Earns his cheer,     Keeps the room in roars of laughter     When he gets outside a beer.     Yarns that would fall flat from others     He can tell;     How he spent his `stuff', my brothers,     You know well.          Manner puts a man in mind of     Old club balls and evening dress,     Ugly with a handsome kind of     Ugliness.     .    .    .    .    .     One of those we say of often,     While hearts swell,     Standing sadly by the coffin:     `He looks well.'     .    .    .    .    .     We may be, so goes a rumour,     Bad as Dan;     But we may not have the humour     Of the man;     Nor the sight, well, deem it blindness,     As the general public do,     And the love of human kindness,     Or the grit to see it through!