Yea! by St. Valentinus, Emma shall not be minus What all young ladies, whate’er their grade is, Expect to-day no doubt: Emma the fair, the stately— Whom I beheld so lately, Smiling beneath the snow-white wreath Which told that she was “out.” Wherefore fly to her, swallow, And mention that I’d “follow,” And “pipe and trill,” et cetera, till I died, had I but wings: Say the North’s “true and tender,” The South an old offender; And hint in fact, with your well-known tact, All kinds of pretty things. Say I grow hourly thinner, Simply abhor my dinner— Tho’ I do try and absorb some viand Each day, for form’s sake merely: And ask her, when all’s ended, And I am found extended, With vest blood-spotted and cut carotid, To think on Her’s sincerely. “HIC _VIR_, HIC EST.” OFTEN, when o’er tree and turret, Eve a dying radiance flings, By that ancient pile I linger Known familiarly as “King’s.” And the ghosts of days departed Rise, and in my burning breast All the undergraduate wakens, And my spirit is at rest. What, but a revolting fiction, Seems the actual result Of the Census’s enquiries Made upon the 15th ult.? Still my soul is in its boyhood; Nor of year or changes recks. Though my scalp is almost hairless, And my figure grows convex. Backward moves the kindly dial; And I’m numbered once again With those noblest of their species Called emphatically ‘Men’: Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime, Through the streets, with tranquil mind, And a long-backed fancy-mongrel Trailing casually behind: Past the Senate-house I saunter, Whistling with an easy grace; Past the cabbage-stalks that carpet Still the beefy market-place; Poising evermore the eye-glass In the light sarcastic eye, Lest, by chance, some breezy nursemaid Pass, without a tribute, by. Once, an unassuming Freshman, Through 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 court delirium tremens 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 through 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.