Verses and Translations | Page 8

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 eye detected
Senior Wranglers in them all.
By degrees my education
Grew, and I became as others;?Learned to court delirium tremens
By the aid of Bacon Brothers;?Bought me tiny boots of Mortlock,
And colossal prints of Roe;?And ignored the proposition
That both time and money go.
Learned to work the wary dogcart
Artfully through King's Parade;?Dress, and steer a boat, and sport with
Amaryllis in the shade:?Struck, at Brown's, the dashing hazard;
Or (more curious sport than that)?Dropped, at Callaby's, the terrier
Down upon the prisoned rat.
I have stood serene on Fenner's
Ground, indifferent to blisters,?While the Buttress of the period
Bowled me his peculiar twisters:?Sung 'We won't go home till morning';
Striven to part my backhair straight;?Drunk (not lavishly) of Miller's
Old dry wines at 78:-
When within my veins the blood ran,
And the curls were on my brow,?I did, oh ye undergraduates,
Much as ye are doing now.?Wherefore bless ye, O beloved ones:-
Now unto mine inn must I,?Your 'poor moralist,' {51a} betake me,
In my 'solitary fly.'
BEER.
In those old days which poets say were golden -
(Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves:?And, if they did, I'm all the more beholden
To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves,?Who talk to me "in language quaint and olden"
Of gods and demigods and fauns and elves,?Pans with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards,?And staid young goddesses who flirt with shepherds:)
In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette
(Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born.?They had their May, but no Mayfair as yet,
No fashions varying as the hues of morn.?Just as they pleased they dressed and drank and ate,
Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn)?And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked,?And were no doubt extremely incorrect.
Yet do I think their theory was pleasant:
And oft, I own, my 'wayward fancy roams'?Back to those times, so different from the present;
When no one smoked cigars, nor gave At-homes,?Nor smote a billiard-ball, nor winged a pheasant,
Nor 'did' their hair by means of long-tailed combs,?Nor migrated to Brighton once a-year,?Nor--most astonishing of all--drank Beer.
No, they did not drink Beer, "which brings me to"
(As Gilpin said) "the middle of my song."?Not that "the middle" is precisely true,
Or else I should not tax your patience long:?If I had said 'beginning,' it might do;
But I have a dislike to quoting wrong:?I was unlucky--sinned against, not sinning -?When Cowper wrote down 'middle' for 'beginning.'
So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt
Has always struck me as extremely curious.?The Greek mind must have had some vital fault,
That they should stick to liquors so injurious -?(Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt) -
And not at once invent that mild, luxurious,?And artful beverage, Beer. How the digestion?Got on without it, is a startling question.
Had they digestions? and an actual body
Such as dyspepsia might make attacks on??Were they abstract ideas--(like Tom