V.

My joys are wingless all and dead;
My dumps are made of more than lead;—­
  My flights soon find a fall;
My fears prevail, my fancies droop,
Joy never cometh with a hoop,
  And seldom with a call!

VI.

My football’s laid upon the shelf;
I am a shuttlecock myself
  The world knocks to and fro;—­
My archery is all unlearn’d,
And grief against myself has turn’d
  My arrows and my bow!

VII.

No more in noontide sun I bask;
My authorship’s an endless task,
  My head’s ne’er out of school: 
My heart is pain’d with scorn and slight,
I have too many foes to fight,
  And friends grown strangely cool!

VIII.

The very chum that shared my cake
Holds out so cold a hand to shake,
  It makes me shrink and sigh:—­
On this I will not dwell and hang,—­
The changeling would not feel a pang
  Though these should meet his eye!

IX.

No skies so blue or so serene
As then;—­no leaves look half so green
  As clothed the playground tree! 
All things I loved are altered so,
Nor does it ease my heart to know
  That change resides in me!

X.

Oh for the garb that marked the boy,
The trousers made of corduroy,
  Well ink’d with black and red;
The crownless hat, ne’er deem’d an ill—­
It only let the sunshine still
  Repose upon my head!

XI.

Oh for the riband round the neck! 
The careless dogs-ears apt to deck
  My book and collar both! 
How can this formal man be styled
Merely an Alexandrine child,
  A boy of larger growth?

XII.

Oh for that small, small beer anew! 
    And (heaven’s own type) that mild sky-blue
  That wash’d my sweet meals down;
The master even!—­and that small Turk
That fagg’d me!—­worse is now my work—­
  A fag for all the town!

XIII.

Oh for the lessons learned by heart! 
Ay, though the very birch’s smart
  Should mark those hours again;
I’d “kiss the rod,” and be resign’d
Beneath the stroke, and even find
  Some sugar in the cane!

XIV.

The Arabian Nights rehearsed in bed! 
The Fairy Tales in school-time read,
  By stealth, ’twixt verb and noun! 
The angel form that always walk’d
In all my dreams, and look’d and talk’d
  Exactly like Miss Brown!

XV.