W. H. L. Barnes + 

Happy the man who sin’s proverbial wage + 

Receives on the instalment plan⁠—in age. + 

For him the bulldog pistol’s honest bark + 

Has naught of terror in its blunt remark. + 

He looks with calmness on the gleaming steel⁠— + 

If e’er it touched his heart he did not feel: + 

Superior hardness turned its point away, + 

Though urged by fond affinity to stay; + 

His bloodless veins ignored the futile stroke, + 

And moral mildew kept the cut in cloak. + 

Happy the man, I say, to whom the wage + 

Of sin has been commuted into age. + 

Yet not quite happy⁠—hark, that horrid cry!⁠— + 

His cruel mirror wounds him in the eye! + 