Charles Stuart Calverley (Чарльз Стюарт Калверли)

Changed

I know not why my soul is rack'd:
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.

A minstrel's fire within me burn'd.
I'd sing, as one whose heart must break,
Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd
To shake.
All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.

I cannot sing the old songs now!
It is not that I deem then low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.
I could not range the hills till high
Above me stood the summer moon:
And as to dancing, I could fly
As soon.

The sports, to which with boyish glee
I sprang erewhile, attract no more;
Although I am but sixty-three
Or four.
Nay, worse than that, I've seem'd of late
To shrink from happy boyhood -- boys
Have grown so noisy, and I hate
A noise.

They fright me, when the beech is green,
By swarming up its stem for eggs:
They drive their horrid hoops between
My legs: --
It's idle to repine, I know;
I'll tell you what I'll do instead:
I'll drink my arrowroot, and go
To bed. 

1. Dover to Munich
2. Striking
3. The Cock and the Bull
4. Gemini and Virgo
5. “Hic Vir, Hic Est”

Constance Naden (Констанс Нэден) Changed ("THEY told me she was still the same")

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