Verses and Translations | Page 8

that red matron, whom the flies would worry,
(Flies in those parts unfortunately do,)
Who walked so slowly, talked
in such a hurry,
And with such wild contempt for stops and Lindley
Murray!
O Isabel, the brightest, heavenliest theme
That ere drew dreamer on to poesy,
Since "Peggy's locks" made
Burns neglect his team,
And Stella's smile lured Johnson from his tea -
I may not tell thee
what thou art to me!
But ever dwells the soft voice in my ear,
Whispering of what Time is, what Man might be,
Would he but "do
the duty that lies near,"
And cut clubs, cards, champagne, balls,
billiard-rooms, and beer.
DIRGE.
"Dr. Birch's young friends will reassemble to-day, Feb. 1st."
White is the wold, and ghostly
The dank and leafless trees;
And 'M's and 'N's are mostly
Pronounced like 'B's and 'D's:
'Neath bleak sheds, ice-encrusted,

The sheep stands, mute and stolid:
And ducks find out, disgusted,
That all the ponds are solid.
Many a stout steer's work is
(At least in this world) finished;
The gross amount of turkies
Is sensibly diminished:
The holly-boughs are faded,
The painted crackers gone;
Would I could write, as Gray did,
An Elegy thereon!
For Christmas-time is ended:
Now is "our youth" regaining
Those sweet spots where are "blended
Home-comforts and school-training."
Now they're, I dare say, venting
Their grief in transient sobs,
And I am "left lamenting"
At home, with Mrs. Dobbs.
O Posthumus! "Fugaces
Labuntur anni" still;
Time robs us of our graces,
Evade him as we will.
We were the twins of Siam:
Now SHE thinks ME a bore,
And I admit that _I_ am
Inclined at times to snore.
I was her own Nathaniel;
With her I took sweet counsel,
Brought seed-cake for her spaniel,

And kept her bird in groundsel:
We've murmured, "How delightful

A landscape, seen by night, is," -
And woke next day in frightful
Pain from acute bronchitis.
0. * *
But ah! for them, whose laughter
We heard last New Year's Day, -
(They reeked not of Hereafter,
Or what the Doctor'd say,) -
For those small forms that fluttered
Moth-like around the plate,
When Sally brought the buttered
Buns in at half-past eight!
Ah for the altered visage
Of her, our tiny Belle,
Whom my boy Gus (at his age!)
Said was a "deuced swell!"
P'raps now Miss Tickler's tocsin
Has caged that pert young linnet;
Old Birch perhaps is boxing
My Gus's ears this minute.
Yet, though your young ears be as
Red as mamma's geraniums,
Yet grieve not! Thus ideas
Pass into infant craniums.
Use not complaints unseemly;
Tho' you must work like bricks;
And it IS cold, extremely,
Rising at half-past six.
Soon sunnier will the day grow,

And the east wind not blow so;
Soon, as of yore, L'Allegro
Succeed Il Penseroso:
Stick to your Magnall's Questions
And Long Division sums;
And come--with good digestions -
Home when next Christmas comes.
LINES SUGGESTED BY THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY.
Darkness succeeds to twilight:
Through lattice and through skylight

The stars no doubt, if one looked out,
Might be observed to shine:
And sitting by the embers
I elevate my
members
On a stray chair, and then and there
Commence a Valentine.
Yea! by St. Valentinus,
Emma shall not be minus
What all young
ladies, whate'er their grade is,
Expect to-day no doubt:
Emma the fair, the stately -
Whom I beheld
so lately,
Smiling beneath the snow-white wreath
Which told that she was "out."
Wherefore fly to her, swallow,
And mention that I'd "follow,"
And
"pipe and trill," et cetera, till
I died, had I but wings:
Say the North's "true and tender,"
The
South an old offender;
And hint in fact, with your well-known tact,
All kinds of pretty things.
Say I grow hourly thinner,
Simply abhor my dinner -
Tho' I do try
and absorb some viand

Each day, for form's sake merely:
And ask her, when all's ended,

And I am found extended,
With vest blood-spotted and cut carotid,
To think on Her's sincerely.
"HIC VIR, HIC EST."
Often, when o'er tree and turret,
Eve a dying radiance flings,
By that ancient pile I linger
Known familiarly as "King's."
And the ghosts of days departed
Rise, and in my burning breast
All the undergraduate wakens,
And my spirit is at rest.
What, but a revolting fiction,
Seems the actual result
Of the Census's enquiries
Made upon the 15th ult.?
Still my soul is in its boyhood;
Nor of year or changes recks.
Though my scalp is almost hairless,
And my figure grows convex.
Backward moves the kindly dial;
And I'm numbered once again
With those noblest of their species
Called emphatically 'Men':
Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime,
Through the streets, with tranquil mind,
And a long-backed
fancy-mongrel
Trailing casually behind:

Past the Senate-house I saunter,
Whistling with an easy grace;
Past the cabbage-stalks that carpet
Still the beefy market-place;
Poising evermore the eye-glass
In the light sarcastic eye,
Lest, by chance, some breezy nursemaid
Pass, without a tribute, by.
Once, an unassuming Freshman,
Through these wilds I wandered on,
Seeing in each house a College,
Under every cap a Don:
Each perambulating infant
Had a magic in its squall,
For my eager