Retrospection.

I'd wandered, for a week or more,                 Through hills, and dells, and doleful green'ry,             Lodging at any carnal door,                 Sustaining life on pork, and scenery.             A weary scribe, I'd just let slip                 My collar, for a short vacation,             And started on a walking trip,                 That cheapest form of dissipation             And vilest, Oh! confess my pen,                 That I, prosaic, rather hate your             "Ode to a Sky-lark" sort of men;                 I really am not fond of Nature.             Mad longing for a decent meal                 And decent clothing overcame me;             There came a blister on my heel                 I gave it up; and who can blame me?             Then wrote my "Pulse of Nature's Heart,"                 Which I procured some little cash on,             And quickly packed me to depart                 In search of "gilded haunts" of fashion,             Which I might puff at column rates,                 To please my host and meet my reckoning;             "Base is the slave who" hesitates                 When wealth, and pleasure both are beckoning.             I sought; I found. Among the swells                 I had my share of small successes,             Made languid love to languid belles                 And penn'd descriptions of their dresses.             Ah! Millionairess Millicent,                 How fair you were! How you adored me!             How many tender hours we spent                 And, oh, beloved, how you bored me!             APRIL, 1871.             Is not that fragmentary bit                 Of my young verse a perfect prism,             Where worldly knowledge, pleasant wit,                 True humor, kindly cynicism,             Refracted by the frolic glass                 Of Fancy, play with change incessant?             JUNE, 1874.             Great Csar! What a sweet young ass                 I must have been, when adolescent!             AUGUST, 1886.