In the spring a boy’s ambition leaps at once to summer heat,
In the spring a young man’s fancy very seldom plays the cheat.
Then my cheeks were white and waxen, thoughtful too for one so young,
Black on brows of snowy marble then my silken ringlets hung.
Yet on pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
When I met the jeers that mocked me, with a spoken scorn outright—
Saying from a height prophetic, “You shall hear me by and by,”
Saying, to the stoutest champion, “We shall meet at Philippi.”
Many a morning saw me famous, many a night more famous still,
Great to lead the grateful Tory, bold to bend him to my will.