words?
I'm 'wildered--scarce with drink,--nowise with drink alone!
You'll say, with heat: but heat's no stuff to split a stone
Like this black boulder--this flint heart of mine: the Book--
That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here's the fist that shook
His beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear!
You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew aware
Christmas was meant for me. A burden at your back,
Good Master Christmas? Nay,--yours was that Joseph's sack,
--Or whose it was,--which held the cup,--compared with mine!
Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine,
Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung!
One word, I'll up with fist.... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!

"I'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs--take and read!
You have my history in a nutshell,--ay, indeed!
It must off, my burden! See,--slack straps and into pit,
Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there--a plague on it!
For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town,
'Destruction'--that's the name, and fire shall burn it down!
O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late.
How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate?
Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull
Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful--
But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago
Town, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!--
Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength
On the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length!
Have at his horns, thwick--thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof--
Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloof
Angels! I'm man and match,--this cudgel for my flail,--
To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail!
A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful ding
Into the deafest ear except--hope, hope's the thing?
Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: but
There's still a way to win the race by death's short cut!
Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts?
No, straight to Vanity Fair,--a fair, by all accounts,
Such as is held outside,--lords, ladies, grand and gay,--
Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say.
And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him out
To die in the market-place--St. Peter's Green's abo