Oh for the bleak and wintry days
   When we set our blood in motion,
Leaping the rocks below the braes
   And wetting our feet in the ocean,

 Or shying at marks for moderate sums
   (A penny a hit, you remember),
With aching fingers and purple thumbs,
   In the merry month of December!

There is little doubt we were very daft,
   And our sports, like the stakes, were trifling;
While the air of the room where we talked and laughed
   Was often unpleasantly stifling.

Now we are grave and sensible men,
   And wrinkles our brows embellish,
And I fear we shall never relish again
   The pleasures we used to relish.

And I fear we never again shall go,
   The cold and weariness scorning,
For a ten mile walk through the frozen snow
   At one o’clock in the morning: 

 Out by Cameron, in by the Grange,
   And to bed as the moon descended . . . 
To you and to me there has come a change,
   And the days of our youth are ended.

 ON AN EDINBURGH ADVOCATE

In youth with diligence he toiled
   A Roman nose to gain,
But though a decent pug was spoiled,
   A pug it did remain.

 THE BANISHED BEJANT

FROM THE UNPUBLISHED REMAINS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

In the oldest of our alleys,
   By good bejants tenanted,
Once a man whose name was Wallace—­
   William Wallace—­reared his head. 
Rowdy Bejant in the college
   He was styled: 
Never had these halls of knowledge
   Welcomed waster half so wild!

Tassel blue and long and silken
   From his cap did float and flow
(This was cast into the Swilcan
   Two months ago);
 And every gentle air that sported
   With his red gown,
Displayed a suit of clothes, reported
   The most alarming in the town.

Wanderers in that ancient alley
   Through his luminous window saw
Spirits come continually
   From a case well packed with straw,
Just behind the chair where, sitting
   With air serene,
And in a blazer loosely fitting,
   The owner of the bunk was seen.

And all with cards and counters straying
   Was the place littered o’er,
With which sat playing, playing, playing,
   And wrangling evermore,
 A group of fellows, whose chief function
   Was to proclaim,
In voices of surpassing unction,
   Their luck and losses in the game.

But stately things, in robes of learning,
   Discussed one day the bejant’s fate: 
Ah, let us mourn him unreturning,
   For they resolved to rusticate! 
And now the glory he inherits,
   Thus dished and doomed,
Is largely founded on the merits
   Of the Old Tom consumed.

And wanderers, now, within that alley
   Through the half-open shutters see,
Old crones, that talk continually
   In a discordant minor key: 
 While, with a kind of nervous shiver,
   Past the front door,
His former set go by for ever,
   But knock—­or ring—­no more.