* * * * * THE LAY OF THE "ANCIENT." [Illustration] As I sit in my chambers, old and bare, That look on the busy street, And hear the roar of the town below, And the tramp of hurrying feet, I think, as I smoke my well-worn pipe, Ensconced in my old arm-chair, Of the days that have passed, like the sigh of the blast, When the world was fresh and fair. Of the joyous time when I joined the inn, Nearly forty years ago, When the fire of youth was in my veins, Where the blood now runs so slow. 'Twas well in that far off happy time, That I could not see before, When we flirted and gambled, and sometimes worked, In the student days of yore. When all was common to him in need, And nothing we called our own. Gone are those days, and can never return-- We reap the crop we have sown. Each of us thought that we should succeed, Though others of course might fail; And we went with the tide in our youthful pride, Like a ship without a sail. Where are they now all these friends of our youth? Scattered abroad o'er the earth. Some few are famous and some are dead, And the world knew not their worth. Some, like myself, are still found in "Hall," Pitied by those we meet, And who pray that their end it may never be To sit in the ancients' seat. * * * * * NO GOT! REICHEMBERG and GOT declare _La Maison de Molière_ They'll resign and leave for ever. Ah! SUZANNE, the sparkling, clever, Long the _Comédie's_ pride and pet, Don't desert your votaries--yet. Try a quarter-century longer, Years but make you brighter, stronger; And GOT'S "go" we can't spare. No, Chaos comes if GOT should go! * * * * * PEDESTRIAN POETRY.--"_The pleasures that lie about our feet_"--Comfortable slippers after a long walk. * * * * * HAUNTED! [Illustration] The quarter where I linger, My square, is Fashion's acme; I'm conscious that the finger Of scorn may well attack me; At number six a Viscount Resides, in proper season; No wonder, then, that _I_ count As vulgar now, with reason. To stay in London, here too!-- This neighbourhood majestic! Oh! what must it appear to A nobleman's domestic? I feel, I can't help stating, Each morn I feel (it tries me), His Lordship's lords-in-waiting Both pity and despise me. His blinds are drawn sedately; Mine blazon low disaster; How desolate, how stately, That mansion mourns its master! His Lordship is at Como-- At least so folks are saying; His Lordship's Major-Domo Reproaches me for staying. But, prowling, like a Polar Bear, up and down the pavement Last eve, and grinding molar Teeth over forced enslavement, A miracle I noted, A "spook," deserving quires Of commentaries quoted By "psychic" Mr. MYERS.