Classic Poem

Twelve years ago I made a mock
— Of filthy trades and traffics:
I wondered what they meant by stock;
— I wrote delightful sapphics;
I knew the streets of Rome and Troy,
— I supped with Fates and Furies, —
Twelve years ago I was a boy,
— A happy boy, at Drury's.

Twelve years ago! — how many a thought
— Of faded pains and pleasures
Those whispered syllables have brought
— From Memory's hoarded treasures!
The fields, the farms, the bats, the books,
— The glories and disgraces,
The voices of dear friends, the looks
— Of old familiar faces!

Kind Mater smiles again to me,
— As bright as when we parted;
I seem again the frank, the free,
— Stout-limbed, and simple-hearted!
Pursuing every idle dream,
— And shunning every warning;
With no hard work but Bovney stream,
— No chill except Long Morning:

Now stopping Harry Vernon's ball
— That rattled like a rocket;
Now hearing Wentworth's " Fourteen all!"
— And striking for the pocket;
Now feasting on a cheese and flitch, —
— Now drinking from the pewter;
Now leaping over Chalvey ditch,
— Now laughing at my tutor.

Where are my friends? I am alone;
— No playmate shares my beaker:
Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
— And some — before the Speaker;
And some compose a tragedy,
— And some compose a rondo;
And some draw sword for Liberty,
— And some draw pleas for John Doe.

Tom Mill was used to blacken eyes
— Without the fear of sessions;
Charles Medlar loathed false quantities,
— As much as false professions;
Now Mill keeps order in the land,
— A magistrate pedantic;
And Medlar's feet repose unscanned
— Beneath the wide Atlantic.

Wild Nick, whose oaths made such a din,
— Does Dr. Martext's duty;
And Mullion, with that monstrous chin,
— Is married to a Beauty;
And Darrell studies, week by week,
— His Mant, and not his Manton;
And Ball, who was but poor at Greek,
— Is very rich at Canton.

And I am eight-and-twenty now; —
— The world's cold chains have bound me;
And darker shades are on my brow,
— And sadder scenes around me:
In Parliament I fill my seat,
— With many other noodles;
And lay my head in Jermyn Street,
— And sip my hock at Boodle's.

But often, when the cares of life
— Have set my temples aching,
When visions haunt me of a wife,
— When duns await my waking,
When Lady Jane is in a pet,
— Or Hoby in a hurry,
When Captain Hazard wins a bet,
— Or Beaulieu spoils a curry, —

For hours and hours I think and talk
— Of each remembered hobby;
I long to lounge in Poets' Walk,
— To shiver in the lobby;
I wish that I could run away
— From House, and Court, and Levee,
Where bearded men appear to-day
— Just Eton boys grown heavy, —

That I could bask in childhood's sun
— And dance o'er childhood's roses,
And find huge wealth in one pound one,
— Vast wit in broken noses,
And play Sir Giles at Datchet Lane,
— And call the milk-maids Houris, —
That I could be a boy again, —
— A happy boy, — at Drury's.