This and other joys I tasted.  I became a Volunteer,
Murmuring Dulce et decorum in the Battery-Sergeant’s ear;

Joined the Golf Club, and with others of an afternoon was seen
Vainly searching in the whins, or foozling on the putting-green;

Took a minor part in Readings; lifted up my voice and sang
At the Musical rehearsals, till the class-room rafters rang;

Wrote long poems for the Column; entered for the S. R. C,
And, if I remember rightly, was thrown out by twenty-three;

Ground a little for my classes, till the hour of nine or ten,
When I read a decent novel or went out to see some men.

So I reaped the large experience which has made me what I am,
Far removed from bejanthood as is St. Andrews from Siam.

But with age and with experience disenchantment comes to all,
Even pleasure on the keenest appetite at last will pall.

Had I now a hundred pounds, a hundred pounds would I bestow
To enjoy the loud solatium as I did three years ago,

When the songs were less familiar, less familiar too the pies,
And I did not mind receiving orange-peel between the eyes.

Yet, in spite of disenchantment, and in spite of finding out
There are some things in the world that I am hardly sure about,

Still sufficient of illusion and inexplicable grace
Hangs about the grey old town to make it a delightful place.

Though solatiums charm no longer, though a gaudeamus fails
With its atmosphere unwholesome to expand my spirit’s sails,

Though rectorial elections are if anything a bore,
And I do not care to carry dripping torches any more,

Though my soul for Moral lectures does not vehemently yearn,
Though the north-east winds are bitter—­I am willing to return.

At this point in my reflections, on the left the Links expand,
Many a whin bush full of prickles, many a bunker full of sand.

And I see distinguished club-men, whom I only know by sight,
Old, obese, and scarlet-coated, playing golf with all their might;

As they were three years ago, when first I travelled by this train,
As they will be three years hence, if I should come this way again.

What to them is train or traveller? what to them the flight of time? 
But we draw too near the station to indulge in the sublime.

In a minute at the furthest on the platform I shall stand,
Waiting till they take my trunk out, with my hat-box in my hand.

As the railway train approaches and the train of thought recedes,
I behold Professor —–­ in a brand new suit of tweeds.

 TO C. C. C.

Oh for the nights when we used to sit
   In the firelight’s glow or flicker,
With the gas turned low and our pipes all lit,
   And the air fast growing thicker;

When you, enthroned in the big arm-chair,
   Would spin for us yarns unending,
Your voice and accent and pensive air
   With the narrative subtly blending!