Yes, ’tis a garret, let him know’t who will;
There was my bed—full hard it was and small;
My table there—and I decipher still
Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
Ye joys that Time hath swept with him away,
Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun
For you I pawned my watch how many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
* * *
One jolly evening, when my friends and I
Made happy music with our songs and cheers,
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high,
And distant cannon opened on our ears;
We rise—we join in the triumphant strain—
Napoleon conquers—Austerlitz is won—
Tyrants shall never tread us down again,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Let us begone—the place is sad and strange;
How far, far off those happy times appear;
All that I have to live I’d gladly change
For one such month as I have wasted here—
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power
From founts of hope that never will return,
And drink all life’s quintessence in an hour—
Give me the days when I was twenty-one!
ON A GIRDLE.
BY EDMUND WALLER.
That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this hath done.
It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that’s good, and all that’s fair:
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
SOLILOQUY FROM MACBETH.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.