Green Bays | Page 6

swells.'
See the freshers one or two,
Just a few,?Now on view,?Who are sensibly and innocently new;?How they cluster, cluster, cluster?Round the rugged walls of Worcester!
See them stand,?Book in hand,?In the garden ground of John's!?How they dote upon their Dons!
See in every man a Blue!?It is true?They are lamentably few;
But I spied?Yesternight upon the staircase just a pair of boots outside
Upon the floor,?Just a little pair of boots upon the stairs where I reside,
Lying there and nothing more;?And I swore?While these dainty twins continued sentry by the chamber door That the hope their presence planted should be with me evermore,
Should desert me--nevermore.
THE SAIR STROKE.
_O waly, waly, my bonnie crew
Gin ye maun bumpit be!?And waly, waly, my Stroke sae true,
Ye leuk unpleasauntlie!_
_O hae ye suppit the sad sherrie
That gars the wind gae soon;?Or hae ye pud o' the braw bird's-e'e,
Ye be sae stricken doun?_
I hae na suppit the sad sherrie,
For a' my heart is sair;?For Keiller's still i' the bonnie Dundee,
And his is halesome fare.
But I hae slain our gude Captain,
That c'uld baith shout and sweer,?And ither twain put out o' pain--
The Scribe and Treasurere.
There's ane lies stark by the meadow-gate,
And twa by the black, black brig:?And waefu', waefu', was the fate
That gar'd them there to lig!
They waked us soon, they warked us lang,
Wearily did we greet;?'Should he abrade' was a' our sang,
Our food but butcher's-meat.
We hadna train'd but ower a week,
A week, but barely twa,?Three sonsie steeds they fared to seek,
That mightna gar them fa'.
They 've ta'en us ower the lang, lang coorse,
And wow! but it was wark;?And ilka coach he sware him hoorse,
That ilka man s'uld hark.
Then upped and spake our pawkie bow,
--O, but he wasna late!?'Now who shall gar them cry Enow,
That gang this fearsome gate?'
Syne he has ta'en his boatin' cap,
And cast the keevils in,?And wha but me to gae (God hap!)
And stay our Captain's din?
I stayed his din by the meadow-gate,
His feres' by Nuneham brig,?And waefu', waefu', was the fate
That gar'd them there to lig!
O, waly to the welkin's top!
And waly round the braes!?And waly all about the shop?(To use a Southron phrase).
Rede ither crews be debonair,
But we 've a weird to dree,?I wis we maun be bumpit sair
By boaties two and three:?Sing stretchers of yew for our Toggere,
Sith we maun bumpit be!
THE DOOM OF THE ESQUIRE BEDELL.
Adown the torturing mile of street
I mark him come and go,?Thread in and out with tireless feet
The crossings to and fro;?A soul that treads without retreat
A labyrinth of woe.
Palsied with awe of such despair,
All living things give room,?They flit before his sightless glare
As horrid shapes, that loom?And shriek the curse that bids him bear
The symbol of his doom.
The very stones are coals that bake
And scorch his fevered skin;?A fire no hissing hail may slake
Consumes his heart within.?Still must he hasten on to rake
The furnace of his sin.
Still forward! forward! For he feels
Fierce claws that pluck his breast,?And blindly beckon as he reels
Upon his awful quest:?For there is that behind his heels
Knows neither ruth nor rest.
The fiends in hell have flung the dice;
The destinies depend?On feet that run for fearful price,
And fangs that gape to rend;?And still the footsteps of his Vice
Pursue him to the end:--?The feet of his incarnate Vice
Shall dog him to the end.
'BEHOLD! I AM NOT ONE THAT GOES TO LECTURES.'
By W. W.
Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of
Professors.
The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.
I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is
signed by the Dean's name--
And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I
stay up
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I am one who goes to the river,
I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'
How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is
everything,
But the end is something.
I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.
I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the
trousers of the twenty-two young men,
I see the Balliol men en masse watching me.--The Hottentot
that loves his mother, the untutored Bedowee, the Cave-man that wears only his certificate of baptism, and the shaggy Sioux that hangs his testamur with his scalps.
I see the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me: and the
wife of the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me.
I see the rapport of the wicket-keeper and umpire. I cannot see
that I am out.
Oh! you Umpires!
I am not one who greatly cares for experience, soap, bull-dogs,
cautions, majorities, or a graduated Income-Tax,
The certainty of space, punctuation, sexes, institutions,
copiousness, degrees, committees, delicatesse, or the fetters of rhyme--
For none of these do I care: but least for the fetters of rhyme.
Myself only I sing. Me Imperturbe! Me Prononce!
Me progressive and the depth of me progressive,
And the bathos, Anglice bathos
Of me chanting to the Public the