Oh

yes, if any truth is found

In the dull schoolman's theme,
If friendship is an empty sound,
And love an idle dream,

If mirth, youth's playmate, feels fatigue
Too soon on life's long way,

At least he'll run with you a league ;-
Laugh on, laugh on to-day!

Perhaps your eyes may grow more bright
As childhood's hues depart;
You may be lovelier to the sight
And dearer to the heart;
You may be sinless still, and see
This earth still green and gay;
But what you are you will not be :
Laugh on, laugh on to-day!

O'er me have many winters crept
With less of grief than joy;

But I have learn'd, and toil'd and wept;
I am no more a boy!

I've never had the gout, 'tis true;

My hair is hardly grey;

But now I cannot laugh like you :
Laugh on, laugh on to-day!

I used to have as glad a face.
As shadowless a brow:

I once could run as blithe a race
As you are running now;
But never mind how I behave!
Don't interrupt your play;

And though I look so very grave,

Laugh on, laugh on to-day!

Winthrop M. Praed.

CCCCI.

THE EFFECTS OF AGE.

YES; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talk'd of by young men

As rather clever ;

In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size :
Is it not time then to be wise?

Or now or never.

Fairest that ever sprang from Eve!
While Time allows the short reprieve,
Just look at me! would you believe

'Twas once a lover?

I cannot clear the five-bar gate,
But, trying first its timbers state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait

To trundle over.

Thro' gallopade I cannot swing

The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:

I cannot say the tender thing,

Be it true or false,

And am beginning to opine

Those girls are only half-divine

Whose waists you wicked boys entwine

In giddy waltz.

I fear that arm above that shoulder,
I wish them wiser, graver, older,
Sedater, and no harm if colder,

And panting less.

Ah, people were not half so wild,
In former days, when, starchly mild,
Upon her high-heel'd Essex smiled

The Brave Queen Bess.

Walter S. Landor.

CCCCII.

SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFellows.

TWELVE years ago I made a mock
Of filthy trades and traffics:
I wonder'd 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 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 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 swords 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 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 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 Hobby 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.

CCCCIII.

Winthrop M. Praed.

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY.

Aн me! those old familiar bounds!

That classic house, those classic grounds

My pensive thought recalls!

What tender urchins now confine,
What little captives now repine,
Within yon irksome walls?

Ay, that's the very house! I know
Its ugly windows, ten a-row!

Its chimneys in the rear!

And there's the iron rod so high,
That drew the thunder from the sky
And turn'd our table-beer!

There I was birch'd! there I was bred!
There like a little Adam fed

From Learning's woeful tree!
The weary tasks I used to con!-
The hopeless leaves I wept upon !—
Most fruitless leaves to me!-

The summon'd class!—the awful bow !--
I wonder who is master now

And wholesome anguish sheds!
How many ushers now employs,
How many maids to see the boys
Have nothing in their heads!

And Mrs. S***?-Doth she abet
(Like Pallas in the parlour) yet
Some favour'd two or three,-
The little Crichtons of the hour,
Her muffin-medals that devour,
And swill her prize-bohea?