----I let the Professor talk as long as he liked; it didn't make much difference to me whether it was all truth, or partly made up of pale Sherry and similar elements. All at once he jumped up and said,--
Don't you want to hear what I just read to the boys?
I have had questions of a similar character asked me before, occasionally. A man of iron mould might perhaps say, No! I am not a man of iron mould, and said that I should be delighted.
The Professor then read--with that slightly sing-song cadence which is observed to be common in poets reading their own verses--the following stanzas; holding them at a focal distance of about two feet and a half, with an occasional movement back or forward for better adjustment, the appearance of which has been likened by some impertinent young folks to that of the act of playing on the trombone. His eyesight was never better; I have his word for it.
Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!-- For I would drink to other days; And brighter shall their memory shine, Seen flaming through its crimson blaze. The roses die, the summers fade; But every ghost of boyhood's dream By Nature's magic power is laid To sleep beneath this blood-red stream.
It filled the purple grapes that lay And drank the splendors of the sun Where the long summer's cloudless day Is mirrored in the broad Garonne; It pictures still the bacchant shapes That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,-- The maidens dancing on the grapes,-- Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.
Beneath these waves of crimson lie, In rosy fetters prisoned fast, Those flitting shapes that never die, The swift-winged visions of the past. Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, Each shadow rends its flowery chain, Springs in a bubble from its brim, And walks the chambers of the brain.
Poor Beauty! time and fortune's wrong No form nor feature may withstand,-- Thy wrecks are scattered all along, Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;-- Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, The dust restores each blooming girl, As if the sea-shells moved again Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.
Here lies the home of school-boy life, With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, And, scarred by many a truant knife, Our old initials on the wall; Here rest--their keen vibrations mute-- The shout of voices known so well, The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.