Classic Poem

Septimi, Gades aditure mecum

My fellow-Fellow, have you noted
How Cantabridge that scorns our yoke
Has very pleasantly promoted
A kind of joke?
It seems the road from here to Hades
Is opened up, and now we are
To have like manumitted ladies,
Our wanderjahr!

Septimius, if we were single,
With liberty to join the dance,
How both the ears of us would tingle
At such a chance!
Alack! the thing is not a question
Of trium liberorum jus ;
And so this excellent suggestion
Won't do for us.

But stay! we two at least might run to
A wander nacht upon the jaunt;
For choice of ground I know of none to
Surpass the haunt
Where once we worshipped Nelly Farren,
And Leslie made the midriff ache,
When life not yet was wholly barren
Of ale and cake.

Or say the Empire? I've enjoyed the
Empire as much as any place;
Only, dear fellow, we'll avoid the
Eve of the race!
For then, like armies of Sennacherib,
The Undergrad is all abroad;
And Chucker-outs are keen to crack a rib
Or spinal cord.

Or thither we might haply muster,
Where Temples of the Muse divine
Are thick as purple grapes that cluster
Upon the vine;
Where Mercury from off a mountain
New-lit and naked as the day
Adorns my Lord of Shaftesbury's fountain,
Which doesn't play.

Beloved angle! where the traffic
Of Coventry and Regent Streets
Makes music rather more seraphic
Than parrakeets;
Where Pav' and Cri' and Trocadero
In blessed rivalry conspire
To give us joy; ( se non e vero ,
Then I'm a liar!).

For there the drinks are long and cooling
Like winter nights about the Pole;
Or, if the taste for shorts is ruling,
Upon my soul
I know a bar where men may batten
On mint as green as Erin's isle,
Or cocktails that would make Manhattan
Forget to smile!

In such a scene more sweet than honey
Even Hymettically sealed,
We'll fume the best cigar that money
Can hope to yield;
" The mild Havannah! " (as they do in
Old Calverley's immortal line),
And weep into its ash the ruin
Of days lang syne!