XXXVI + 

Or, it may be, the bard had passed + 

A life in common with the rest; + 

Vanished his youthful years at last, + 

The fire extinguished in his breast, + 

In many things had changed his life⁠— + 

The Muse abandoned, ta’en a wife, + 

Inhabited the country, clad + 

In dressing-gown, a cuckold glad: + 

A life of fact, not fiction, led⁠— + 

At forty suffered from the gout, + 

Eaten, drunk, gossiped and grown stout: + 

And finally, upon his bed + 

Had finished life amid his sons, + 

Doctors and women, sobs and groans. + 