When I lay in a cradle and suck'd a coral
I lov'd romance in my childish way;
And stories, with or without a moral,
Were welcome as ever the flowers in May.
For love of the false I learnt my spelling,
And brav'd the perils of A B C;
While matters of fact were most repelling,
Romance was pleasant as aught could be.

My reading took me to desert islands,
And buried me deep in Arabian Nights;
Sir Walter led me amongst the Highlands,
Or into the thickest of Moslem fights.
I found the elder Dumas delightful —
Before the son had eclipsed the dad,
And Harrison Ainsworth finely frightful,
And Fenimore Cooper far from bad.

A few years later I took to reading
The morbid stories of Edgar Poe —
Not healthy viands for youthful feeding
(And all my advisers told me so).
But, healthy or not, I enjoyed them vastly;
My feverish fancy was nightly fed
Upon horrible crimes and murders ghastly,
Which sent me terrified off to bed.

Well, what with perils upon the prairies,
And haunted ruins and ghosts in white,
And wars with giants and gifts from fairies,
At last I came to be crazed outright;
And, many a time, in my nightly slumbers,
Bearing a glove as a lady's gage,
I held the list against countless numbers,
After the style of the darkest age.

I am changed at present; the olden fever
Has left my brain in a sounder state;
In commonplace I'm a firm believer,
And hunt for figures and fact and date.
I have lost a lot of my old affection
For books on which I was wont to feed,
But still I can thrill at the recollection
Of mystery, magic, and martial deed.