| |
| WITH pensive eyes the little room I view, | |
| Where, in my youth, I weathered it so long; | |
| With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two, | |
| And a light heart still breaking into song: | |
| Making a mock of life, and all its cares, | 5 |
| Rich in the glory of my rising sun, | |
| Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs, | |
| In the brave days when I was twenty-one. | |
| |
| Yes; ’t is a garret—let him know ’t who will— | |
| There is my bed—full hard it was and small; | 10 |
| My table there—and I decipher still | |
| Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall. | |
| Ye joys, that Time hath swept with him away, | |
| Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun; | |
| For you I pawned my watch how many a day, | 15 |
| In the brave days when I was twenty-one. * * * * * | |
| One jolly evening, when my friends and I | |
| Made happy music with our songs and cheers, | |
| A shout of triumph mounted up thus high, | |
| And distant cannon opened on our ears: | 20 |
| We rise—we join in the triumphant strain— | |
| Napoleon conquers—Austerlitz is won— | |
| Tyrants shall never tread us down again, | |
| In the brave days when I was twenty-one. | |
| |
| Let us begone—the place is sad and strange— | 25 |
| How far, far off, these happy times appear; | |
| All that I have to live I ’d gladly change | |
| For one such month as I have wasted here— | |
| To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power, | |
| From founts of hope that never will outrun, | 30 |
| And drink all life’s quintessence in an hour, | |
| Give me the days when I was twenty-one! | |
| |
