The lachrymose coal-heaver, with the bit of rusty crape round his greasy hat, whose amiable wife a week since was discovered dead drunk, is treating his hopeful son, the charity boy, to a brimming glass of his only luxury ; and, with difficulty attempting to keep his perpendicular, is deploring the loss of his tender spouse, while recommending the fuddled youth never to get ' tossicated.'

As we all know, Joyce's magnum opi Ulysse and Finnegans Wake are commonly thought difficult and obscure.

an unblossomed rose

I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault, And presently took post to tell it you: