In London (on the left-hand side As you go in), stands Baker Street, Exhibited with proper pride By all policemen on the beat, As housing one whose predilection Is private criminal detection.
The malefactor's apt disguise Presents to him an easy task; His placid, penetrating eyes Can pierce the most secretive mask; And felons ask a deal too much Who fancy to elude his clutch.
No slender or exiguous clew Too paltry for his needs is found; No knot too stubborn to undo, No prey too swift to run to ground; No road too difficult to travel, No skein too tangled to unravel.
For Holmes the ash of a cigar, A gnat impinging on his eye, Possess a meaning subtler far Than humbler mortals can descry. A primrose at the river's brim No simple primrose is to him!
To Holmes a battered Brahma key, Combined with blurred articulation, Displays a man's capacity For infinite ingurgitation; Obliquity of moral vision Betrays the civic politician.
I had an uncle, who possessed A marked resemblance to a bloater, Whom Sherlock, by deduction, guessed To be the victim of a motor; Whereas, his wife (or so he swore) Had merely shut him in the door!
My brother's nose, whose hectic hue Recalled the sun-kissed autumn leaf, Though friends attributed it to Some secret or domestic grief, Revealed to Holmes his deep potations, And _not_ the loss of loved relations!
I had a poodle, short and fat, Who proved a conjugal deceiver; Her offspring were a Maltese Cat, Two Dachshunds and a pink retriever! Her husband was a pure-bred Skye; And Sherlock Holmes alone knew why!
When after-dinner speakers rise, To plunge in anecdotage deep, At once will Sherlock recognise Each welcome harbinger of sleep: That voice which torpid guests entrances, That immemorial voice of Chauncey's!
Not his, suppose Hall Caine should walk All unannounced into the room, To say, like pressmen of New York, "Er--Mr. Shakespeare, I presoom?" By name "The Manxman" Holmes would hail, Observing that he _had no tale_.
In vain, amid the lonely state Of Zion, dreariest of havens, Does bashful Dowie emulate The prophet who was fed by ravens; To Holmes such affluence betrays A prophet who is fed by _jays_! . . . . . . With Holmes there lived a foolish man, To whom I briefly must allude, Who gloried in possessing an Abnormal mental hebetude; One could describe the grossest _bétise_ To this (forgive the rhyme) Achates.