When it is hard to string a cheerful rhyme,
Your genial influence unshaken bides
Amid the flux of shifting sands and tides;
And, re-electing you by acclamation,
The Parliament has acted for the nation,
Which, while acknowledging the Members' _nous_,
Congratulates not you, Sir, but the House.

'Tis fourteen years since you were called to bear
The heavy burdens of your "perilous Chair"--
What years, what burdens! Yet your steadfast mien
Has never failed to dominate the scene.
Others have found the post a giant's robe
Or lacked the needful patience of a Job;
But you, by dint of fearless common sense,
Have won and held all Parties' confidence;
Firm as the rock and as the crystal clear,
When need arises righteously austere,
Ready, not eager, your advice to lend,
And not afraid in season to unbend.

Thus, tested by a strain that very few,
If any, of your predecessors knew,
You come at last, among the lesser fry,
To loom so largely in the public eye,
That, we regard you, greatest of your clan,
More as an institution than a man.

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