A Ramshackle Room

When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn,         And the lights are put out in the vault of the night;     When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn,         And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight,     Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am         My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam.     'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain         Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor;     With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane,         And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door;     With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall,         And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall.     There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes -         A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay -     There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes         When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away.     There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot,         Such as Plato, and Dickens, and Liddell and Scott.     And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag         From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out;     And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag         As she tidies the room where she bustles about;     For a man may be strong and a man may be young,         But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue.     And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease         In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down,     With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees,         And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown.     Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am         From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam.