His beat lies knee-high through a dust of story- <br />A dust of terror and torture, grief and crime; <br />Ghosts that are England's wonder, and shame, and glory <br />Throng where he walks, an antic of old time; <br />A sense of long immedicable tears <br />Were ever with him, could his ears but heed; <br />The stern Hic Jacets of our bloodiest years <br />Are for his reading, had he eyes to read, <br />But here, where Crookback raged, and Cranmer trimmed, <br />And More and Strafford faced the axe's proving, <br />He shows that Crown the desperate Colonel nimmed, <br />Or simply keeps the Country Cousin moving, <br />Or stays such Cockney pencillers as would shame <br />The wall where some dead Queen hath traced her name.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/london-types-beef-eater/
