They had only just heard you were not going to come,
And alack! and alas! they had ordered the casket!
The address had been settled; the language was tall,
The phrases were apt and so beautifully rounded,
They had told of your pluck so well known to us all,
And your praises, of course, they had suitably sounded.
And then you can't come!—But it scarcely avails
To become of excuses a common concocter,
For if "pressure of business" will keep you from Wales,
Why go down to Cambridge to pose as a Doctor?