SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS.
TWELVE years ago I made a mock Now leaping over Chalvey ditch,
Of filthy trades and traffics :

Now laughing at my tutor.
I wonder'd what they meant by stock;
I wrote delightful sapphics ;

Where are my friends? I am alone;
I knew the streets of Rome and Troy, No playmate shares my beaker:
I supp'd with Fates and Furies,-

Some lie beneath the Churchyard stone, Twelve years ago I was a boy,

And some—before the Speaker; A happy boy, at Drury's.

And some compose a tragedy,

And some compose a rondo; Twelve years ago!-how many a thought And some draw swords for liberty, Of faded pains and pleasures

And some draw pleas for John Doe. Those whisper'd 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-limb'd, 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 Aitch,-

Now drinking from the pewter;

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 unscann'd

Beneath the wide Atlantic.

Wild Nick, whose oaths made such a din,

Does Dr. Martext's duty;