come this way again.

What to them is train or traveller? what to them the flight of time? But we draw too near the station to indulge in the sublime.

In a minute at the furthest on the platform I shall stand, Waiting till they take my trunk out, with my hat-box in my hand.

p. 112As the railway train approaches and the train of thought recedes, I behold Professor --- in a brand new suit of tweeds.

p. 112

p. 113TO C. C. C.

p. 113

Oh for the nights when we used to sit In the firelight’s glow or flicker, With the gas turned low and our pipes all lit, And the air fast growing thicker;

When you, enthroned in the big arm-chair, Would spin for us yarns unending, Your voice and accent and pensive air With the narrative subtly blending!

Oh for the bleak and wintry days When we set our blood in motion, Leaping the rocks below the braes And wetting our feet in the ocean,

p. 114Or shying at marks for moderate sums  (A penny a hit, you remember), With aching fingers and purple thumbs, In the merry month of December!

p. 114

There is little doubt we were very daft, And our sports, like the stakes, were trifling; While the air of the room where we talked and laughed Was often unpleasantly stifling.

Now we are grave and sensible men, And wrinkles our brows embellish, And I fear we shall never relish again The pleasures we used to relish.

And I fear we never again shall go, The cold and weariness scorning, For a ten mile walk through the frozen snow At one o’clock in the morning:

p. 115Out by Cameron, in by the Grange, And to bed as the moon descended . . . To you and to me there has come a change, And the days of our youth are ended.

p. 115

p. 116ON AN EDINBURGH ADVOCATE

p. 116

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