O, the fun, the fun and frolic

   
That The Wind That Shakes The Barley
   
Scatters through a penny-whistle

   
Tickled with artistic fingers!

Kate the scrubber (forty summers,

   
Stout but sportive) treads a measure,

   
Grinning, in herself a ballet,

   
Fixed as fate upon her audience.

Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported;

   
Splinted fingers tap the rhythm;

   
And a head all helmed with plasters

   
Wags a measured approbation.

Of their mattress-life oblivious,

   
All the patients, brisk and cheerful,

   
Are encouraging the dancer,

   
And applauding the musician.

Dim the gas-lights in the output

   
Of so many ardent smokers,

   
Full of shadow lurch the corners,

   
And the doctor peeps and passes.

There are, maybe, some suspicions

   
Of an alcoholic presence . . .

   
'Tak' a sup of this, my wumman!' . . .

   
New Year comes but once a twelve-month.

William Ernest Henley,

London Voluntaries, 1898.