A man, who looked as if he had been cut out of a granite block, and who at the end of each verse thrust his pipe back into his mouth, sang in a broad accent, that made Rob want to go nearer him, some verses about an old university—
'Take off the stranger's hat!'—The shout
We raised in fifty-nine
Assails my ears, with careless flout,
And now the hat is mine.
It seems a day since I was here,
A student slim and hearty,
And see, the boys around me cheer,
'The ancient-looking party!'
Rough horseplay did not pass for wit
When Rae and Mill were there;
I see a lad from Oxford sit
In Blackie's famous chair.
And Rae, of all our men the one
We most admired in quad
(I had this years ago), has gone
Completely to the bad.
In our debates the moral Mill
Had infinite address,
Alas! since then he's robbed a till,
And now he's on the press.
And Tommy Robb, the ploughman's son,
Whom all his fellows slighted,
From Rae and Mill the prize has won,
For Tommy's to be knighted.
A lanky loon is in the seat
Filled once by manse-bred Sheen,
Who did not care to mix with Peate,
A bleacher who had been.
But watch the whirligig of time,
Brave Peate became a preacher,
His name is known in every clime,
And Sheen is now the bleacher.
McMillan, who the medals carried,
Is now a judge, 'tis said,
And curly-headed Smith is married,
And Williamson is dead.
Old Phil and I who shared our books
Now very seldom meet,
And when we do, with frowning looks
We pass by in the street.
The college rings with student slang
As in the days of yore,
The self-same notice boards still hang
Upon the class-room door:
An essay (I expected that)
On Burns this week, or Locke,
'A theory of creation' at
Precisely seven o'clock.
There's none here now who knows my name,
My place is far away,
And yet the college is the same,
Not older by a day.
But curious looks are cast at me,
Ah! herein lies the change,
All else is as it used to be,
And I alone am strange!
'Now, you could never guess,' Simms said to Rob, 'what profession our singer belongs to.'
'He looks more like a writer than an artist,' said Rob, who had felt the song more than the singer did.