A sort of vulgar Venice
Reminds me where I am;
Yes, yes, you are in England,
And I'm at Rotterdam.
Tall houses with quaint gables,
Where frequent windows shine,
And quays that lead to bridges,
And trees in formal line,
And masts of spicy vessels
From western Surinam,
All tell me you're in England,
But I'm in Rotterdam.
Those sailors, how outlandish
The face and form of each!
They deal in foreign gestures,
And use a foreign speech;
A tongue not learned near Isis,
Or studied by the Cam,
Declares that you're in England,
And I'm at Rotterdam.
And now across a market
My doubtful way I trace,
Where stands a solemn statue,
The genius of the place;
And to the great Erasmus
I offer my salaam;
Who tells me you're in England,
But I'm at Rotterdam.
The coffee-room is open,
I mingle in its crowd;
The dominos are noisy,
The hookahs raise a cloud;
The flavour now of Fearon's,
That mingles with my dram,
Reminds me you're in England,
And I'm at Rotterdam.
Then here it goes, a bumper-
The toast it shall be mine,
In schiedam, or in sherry,
Tokay, or hock of Rhine;
It well deserves the brightest,
Where sunbeam ever swam-
The Girl I love in England
I drink at Rotterdam!
JENNY kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in ;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.
TWELVE years ago I made a mock
Of filthy trades and traffics;
I wondered what they meant by stock;
I wrote deligthful 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 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 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,
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 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.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed.
WHEN all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.
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