Look at me and you shall see
    The ghastliest of the ghastly;
    The eyes that have watched a thousand years,
    The forehead lined with a thousand cares,
    The seaweed-character of hairs!—­
    You shall see and you shall see,
    Or you may hear, as I can feel,
  When the winds batter, how these parchments clatter,
  And the beautiful tenor that’s ever ringing
  When thro’ the Seaweed the breeze is singing: 
  And you should know, I know a great deal,
    When the bacchi arcanum I clutch and gripe,
  I know a great deal of wind and weather
  By hearing my own cheeks slap together
    A-pulling up a pipe.

    I believe—­and I conceive
      I’m an authority
      In all things ghastly,
    First for tenuity
    For stringiness secondly,
      And sallowness lastly—­
  I say I believe a cadaverous man
  Who would live as long and as lean as he can
    Should live entirely on bacchi—­
  On the bacchic ambrosia entirely feed him;
    When living thus, so little lack I,
  So easy am I, I’ll never heed him
  Who anything seeketh beyond the Leaf:
    For, what with mumbling pipe-ends freely,
    And snuffing the ashes now and then,
  I give it as my firm belief
    One might go living on genteelly
    To the age of an antediluvian.

  This from the king to each spectral Grim—­
    Mind, we address no bibbing smoker! 
  Tell not us ’tis as broad as it’s long,
  We’ve no breadth more than a leathern thong
    Tanned—­or a tarnished poker: 
  Ye are also lank and slim?—­
    Your king he comes of an ancient line
    Which “length without breadth” the Gods define,
  And look ye follow him! 
    Lanky lieges! the Gods one day
    Will cut off this line, as geometers say,
    Equal to any given line:—­
    PI,—­PE—­their hands divine
    Do more than we can see: 
    They cut off every length of clay
    Really in a most extraordinary way—­
    They fill your bowls up—­Dutch C’naster,
    Shag, York River—­fill ’em faster,
    Fill ’em faster up, I say. 
    What Turkey, Oronoko, Cavendish! 
    There’s the fuel to make a chafing dish,
    A chafing dish to peel the petty
    Paint that girls and boys call pretty—­
    Peel it off from lip and cheek: 
    We’ve none such here; yet, if ye seek
    An infallible test for a raw beginner,
    Mundungus will always discover a sinner.

  Now ye are charged, we give the word
  Light! and pour it thro’ your noses,
    And let it hover and lodge in your hair
    Bird-like, bird-like—­You’re aware
  Anacreon had a bird—­
    A bird! and filled his bowl with roses. 
    Ha ha! ye laugh in ghastlywise,
    And the smoke comes through your eyes,
    And you’re looking very grim,
    And the air is very dim,
    And the casual paper flare
    Taketh still a redder glare.