He shuffled on, his shoes too small, His head too big. A golf ball on a tee, He peered once at the waiting stalls And fifty years of flogging round The flea pits, booze halls, ends of piers, Back rooms where the beer ran flat, Lodgings seen through a bottle end, Bulged in the bags of his eyes. His leathery tongue, the foot in his mouth, Tripped off a failing joke or two And the tepid applause we threw at him Bathed him like a tropical spring.