My ‘pals’ stick to me like a leech, When in want of a lunch or a loan, At other times swagger and preach And say: ‘I am wanting in tone’; They tell me again and again I need change――some fresh air by the sea; Do they think I am mad or insane? Their tameness is shocking to me. III. Society, friendship, and love, Look at me, pale, sickly and wan, I should like to give that footstool a shove, But I really don’t know if I can. As I listlessly turn o’er the page Of some fanciful fickle untruth, Bent double by premature age, You hardly would guess at my youth. IV. Yes, alas! I feel seedy and old, Though the notion is highly absurd, For I’ve plenty of silver and gold, And there’s nothing I cannot afford: I’ve only to touch my hand-bell For although not respected, I’m feared, Though I live as a sot, I’m a swell And am thinking of growing a beard. V. Ye wiles that have made me your sport, Who have wasted my health and my ore, Who’ve made me swill sherry and port Till I could not contain any more; Oh! how I do wish I could mend Or begin life again and you’d see If I wouldn’t do something to tend To my taking my B.A. degree. VI. Just once in a way, I don’t mind, But, thus happening night after night! And the thoughts which the fumes leave behind, Are anything but pleasant or bright; I drink or I gamble till three, And, if I _do_ reach the right square, Very often can’t find my latch key, Or perhaps take my bath for a chair. VII. I’ve become a by-word and a jest, And though I pretend I don’t care, I feel I’m a bore and a pest, Why, they laugh at the things that I wear, I’ll pick my man, my pistols and place, I know a very nice little spot―― Hand him one, with most infinite grace. And either shoot him, or be shot! From _Cribblings from the Poets_, by Hugh Cayley. Jones and Piggott. Cambridge. 1883. ―――― VERSES _Supposed to have been written by Salisbury Selkirk, during his solitary abode in a Desert Chamber._ I am monarch of all I survey; My facts there are none to dispute; I can sneer in my nastiest way, And the Government Benches are mute, Oh, why do I constantly sit In this roofless and desolate house? For the Peers have had “notice to quit,” And ’tis left to the spider and mouse. I am out of Democracy’s reach, My place the political shelf, Never hear the sweet sound of a speech―― Except those I make to myself. The policemen who haunt Palace Yard My form with indifference see; To a Marquis they pay no regard, Which seems dreadfully “bad form” to me. * * * * *