  “Laudator temporis acti” cantat:— 1. Closed now the book, untrimmed the lamp, Flung wide the lattice-shutter; The night-breeze strikes in, chill and damp, The fir-trees moan and mutter: Lo, dawn is near! pale Student, thou No count of time hast reckon’d; Go, seek a rest for weary brow From dreams of Charles the Second. 2. Sad grows the world: those hours are past When, jovially convivial, Choice Spirits met, and round them cast Such glow as made cares trivial; When nights prolonged through following days Found night still closing o’er us, While Youth and Age exchanged their lays, Or intertwined in chorus. 3. Our gravest Pundits of the Bench, Most reverend Sirs of Pulpit, Smiled at the praise of some coy wench, Or—if too warm—could gulp it. Loyal to King, faithful to Church, And firm to Constitution, No friend, no foe they left in lurch, Or sneaked to Revolution. 4. There, many a sage Physician told Fresh facts of healing knowledge; There, the dazed Bookworm could grow bold, And speak of pranks at College: There, weary Pamphleteers forgot Faction, debates, and readers, But helped to drain the clinking-pot With punning Special-pleaders. 5. How oft some warrior, famed abroad For valour in campaigning, Exchanged the thrust with foes he awed For hob-a-nob Champaigning! While some Old Salt, an Admiral And Circumnavigator, Joined in the revel at our call, Nor sheer’d-off three days later. 6. Who lives to thrill with jest and song, Like those whose memories haunt us?— Who never knew a night too long, Or head-ache that could daunt us. The weaklings of a later day Win neither Mirth nor Thinking; They mix, and spoil, both work and play: They’ve lost the art of Drinking! 7. For me, I lonely grow, and shy, No one seems worth my courting; Though girls have still a laughing eye, And tempt to May-day sporting: For sillier youth, or richer Lord, Or some staid prig, and colder, “Neat-handed Phillis” spreads the board, And Chloe bares her shoulder. 8. In days gone by, light grew the task, For holidays were glorious; It was the talk sublimed the flask, That now is deemed uproarious. We’ve so much Methodistic cant, Abstainers’ Total drivel, And, worse, Utilitarian rant— One scarcely can keep civil. 9. Our politics are insincere, For Statesmen cog and shuffle; They hit not from the shoulder clear, But dodge, and spar with muffle. How Bench and Bar sink steeped in mire, Avails not here recording: While Prelates cannot now look higher Than to mere self-rewarding. 10. Friends of old days, ’tis well you died Before, like me, you sickened Amid the rottenness and pride That in this world have quickened: You passed, ere yet your hopes grew dim, While Love and Friendship warmed you: I look but to th’ horizon’s rim, For all that erst had charmed you. 11. Not here, amid a lower crew, I seek to fill your places; For men no more have hearts as true, Nor maids,—though fair their faces. My thoughts flit back to earlier days, Where Pleasure’s finger beckon’d, Cheered with the Beauty, Love, and Lays That warmed our Charles the Second. J. W. E. Biblioth. Ashmol., Cantium, 1876. [End of “The ‘Drolleries’ of the Restoration.”] |
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