Light-pursed, light-hearted, addle-brained,
And often captivated,

Yet, save on circuit-unretained,
And, save at chess-unmated.

Yet oh!-if Nemesis with me
Should sport, as with my betters,
And put me on my awkward knee
To prate of flowers and fetters,—
I know not whose the eyes should be
To make this fortress tremble;
But yesternight I dreamed,—ah me!
Whose they should most resemble !

(NOVEMBER 20, 1827.)

SCHOOL AND SCHOOL-FELLOWS.

"Floreat Etona."

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 supp'd 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 Medler loath'd false quantities,
As much as false professions.

Now Mill keeps order in the land,

A magistrate pedantic;

And Medler's feet repose, unscann'd,
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 Darrel studies, week by week,
His Mant, and not his Manton;

And Ball, who was but poor at Greek,

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 Poet's 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!

(1829.)