Hic Vir, Hic Est.

Often, when o'er tree and turret,      Eve a dying radiance flings,     By that ancient pile I linger      Known familiarly as "King's."     And the ghosts of days departed      Rise, and in my burning breast     All the undergraduate wakens,      And my spirit is at rest.     What, but a revolting fiction,      Seems the actual result     Of the Census's enquiries      Made upon the 15th ult.?     Still my soul is in its boyhood;      Nor of year or changes recks.     Though my scalp is almost hairless,      And my figure grows convex.     Backward moves the kindly dial;      And I'm numbered once again     With those noblest of their species      Called emphatically 'Men':     Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime,      Through the streets, with tranquil mind,     And a long-backed fancy-mongrel      Trailing casually behind:     Past the Senate-house I saunter,      Whistling with an easy grace;     Past the cabbage-stalks that carpet      Still the beefy market-place;     Poising evermore the eye-glass      In the light sarcastic eye,     Lest, by chance, some breezy nursemaid      Pass, without a tribute, by.     Once, an unassuming Freshman,      Through these wilds I wandered on,     Seeing in each house a College,      Under every cap a Don:     Each perambulating infant      Had a magic in its squall,     For my eager eye detected      Senior Wranglers in them all.     By degrees my education      Grew, and I became as others;     Learned to court delirium tremens      By the aid of Bacon Brothers;     Bought me tiny boots of Mortlock,      And colossal prints of Roe;     And ignored the proposition      That both time and money go.     Learned to work the wary dogcart      Artfully through King's Parade;     Dress, and steer a boat, and sport with      Amaryllis in the shade:     Struck, at Brown's, the dashing hazard;      Or (more curious sport than that)     Dropped, at Callaby's, the terrier      Down upon the prisoned rat.     I have stood serene on Fenner's      Ground, indifferent to blisters,     While the Buttress of the period      Bowled me his peculiar twisters:     Sung 'We won't go home till morning';      Striven to part my backhair straight;     Drunk (not lavishly) of Miller's      Old dry wines at 78:-     When within my veins the blood ran,      And the curls were on my brow,     I did, oh ye undergraduates,      Much as ye are doing now.     Wherefore bless ye, O beloved ones:-      Now unto mine inn must I,     Your 'poor moralist,' {51a} betake me,      In my 'solitary fly.'