Lucile By Owen Meredith [i.e. E. R. B. Lytton] |
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| XXIII. | XXIII. |
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 | Lucile |  |
XXIII.
O hour of all hours, the most bless'd upon earth,
Blessèd hour of our dinners!
Blessèd hour of our dinners!
The land of his birth;
The face of his first love; the bills that he owes;
The twaddle of friends, and the venom of foes;
The sermon he heard when to church he last went;
The money he borrow'd, the money he spent;—
All of these things a man, I believe, may forget,
And not be the worse for forgetting; but yet
Never, never, oh never! earth's luckiest sinner
Hath unpunish'd forgotten the hour of his dinner!
Indigestion, that conscience of every bad stomach,
Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him with some ache
Or some pain; and trouble, remorseless, his best ease,
As the Furies once troubled the sleep of Orestes.
The face of his first love; the bills that he owes;
The twaddle of friends, and the venom of foes;
The sermon he heard when to church he last went;
The money he borrow'd, the money he spent;—
All of these things a man, I believe, may forget,
And not be the worse for forgetting; but yet
Never, never, oh never! earth's luckiest sinner
Hath unpunish'd forgotten the hour of his dinner!
Indigestion, that conscience of every bad stomach,
Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him with some ache
Or some pain; and trouble, remorseless, his best ease,
As the Furies once troubled the sleep of Orestes.
| Lucile | |