Once, an unassuming Freshman,

Thro' these wilds I wandered on,

Seeing in each house a College,

Under every cap a Don:

Each perambulating infant

Had a magic in its squall,

For my eager eye detected

Senior Wranglers in them all.

By degrees my education

Grew, and I became as others;

Learned to blunt my moral feelings

By the aid of Bacon Brothers;

Bought me tiny boots of Mortlock, And colossal prints of Roe;

And ignored the proposition

That both time and money go.

Learned to work the wary dogcart

Artfully thro' King's Parade;

Dress, and steer a boat, and sport with

Amaryllis in the shade:

Struck, at Brown's, the dashing hazard;

Or (more curious sport than that)

Dropped, at Callaby's, the terrier

Down upon the prisoned rat.

I have stood serene on Fenner's
Ground, indifferent to blisters,

While the Buttress of the period

Bowled me his peculiar twisters:

Sung 'We won't go home till morning'; Striven to part my backhair straight;

Drunk (not lavishly) of Miller's

Old dry wines at 78/:

When within my veins the blood ran,

And the curls were on my brow,

I did, oh ye undergraduates,

Much as ye are doing now.

Wherefore bless ye, O beloved ones:

Now unto mine inn must I,

Your 'poor moralist,'* betake me,

In my 'solitary fly.'

BEER.

IN those old days which poets say were golden— (Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves:

And, if they did, I'm all the more beholden
To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves,

Who talk to me "in language quaint and olden"
Of gods and demigods and fauns and elves,
Pan with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards,
And staid young goddesses who flirt with shepherds :)

In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette (Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born. They had their May, but no Mayfair as yet,

No fashions varying as the hues of morn.

Just as they pleased they dressed and drank and ate,

Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn)

And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked, And were no doubt extremely incorrect.

Yet do I think their theory was pleasant:

And oft, I own, my 'wayward fancy roams Back to those times, so different from the present; When no one smoked cigars, nor gave At-homes, Nor smote a billiard-ball, nor winged a pheasant,

Nor did' her hair by means of long-tailed combs,

Nor migrated to Brighton once a year,

Nor-most astonishing of all-drank Beer.

No, they did not drink Beer, "which brings me to " (As Gilpin said) "the middle of my song."

Not that "the middle" is precisely true,

Or else I should not tax your patience long:

If I had said 'beginning,' it might do;

But I have a dislike to quoting wrong: