THE GARRET.

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,

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;‘ tis a garret — let him know't who will —

There was my bed — full hard it was and small;

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,

In the brave days when I was twenty-one.

And see my little Jessy, first of all;

She comes with pouting lips and sparkling eyes:

Behold, how roguishly she pins her shawl

Across the narrow casement, curtain-wise;

Now by the bed her petticoat glides down,

And when did woman look the worse in none?

I have heard since who paid for many a gown,

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:

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 —

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,

And drink all life's quintessence in an hour,

Give me the days when I was twenty-one!