LAST night I rode with Touchstone on a bus

From Ludgate Hill to World's End. It was he!

Despite the broadcloth and the bowler hat,

I knew him, Touchstone, the wild flower of folly,

The whetstone of his age, the scourge of kings,

The madcap morning star of elfin-land,

Who used to wrap his legs around his neck

For warmth on winter nights. He had slipped back,

To see what men were doing in a world

That should be wiser. He had watched a play,

Read several books, heard men discourse of art

And life; and he sat bubbling like a spring

In Arden. Never did blackbird, drenched with may,

Chuckle as Touchstone chuckled on that ride.

Lord, what a world! Lord, what a mad, mad world!

Then, to the jolt and jingle of the engine,

He burst into this bunch of madcap rhymes:—