I look me back to boyhood’s days,
When I was wont to pore
O’er grammar, ’neath a master’s gaze,
Nor thought of forty-four.
The mathematics I began,
Twice two I said was four,
What more know I, tho’ time has ran,
And made me forty-four.
Of French and crabbed Latin too
I laid in little store,
Yet both are pleasing to my view,
Now I am forty-four.
Thus time makes pleasant in his round
What once to us was sore,
This truth full often have I found,
Ere I was forty-four.
One nymph to crown our nuptial bliss,
See dancing on the floor,
May all our days be blest as this
On which I am forty-four.
Tho’ small my girl, our share, our wealth,
On wolf, we bar the door;
If Providence but sends me health,
I’m blest at forty-four.
For thee, my love, long life I ask,
That blessing sent of yore,
When men like boys conn’d o’er a task
At ten times forty-four.
The Aerial, or The Great Unknown, AT VAUXHALL.
The Aerial, or The Great Unknown,
AT VAUXHALL.