University of Virginia Library

PARTY OF STUDENTS IN THE UPPER ROOM

First Student.
—Look, how Darrel is moping; ask him to sing;
They are dull fellows poets, unless they can get
All the say to themselves: there he stands in a pet,
Like a hen on one leg with her head 'neath her wing.

Second Student.
Nay, let him alone; Cupid hit him last night;
I heard the sharp twang of his bow, and it broke his
Poor Muse's wing, who came down, in sad plight,
With a flutter of anapæsts, dactyls, and trochees.

Third Student.
—Ralph, come, pluck up heart, man, and give us a stave:
Love is life to the poet, like wind to a ship,
It will give you a song, though she give you the slip,
Which you'll sing at her wedding, or else o'er her grave;
For the song is as much as the Love to the poet;—
'Tis the fruit, and the passion was but soil to grow it.

First Student.
—A fig for your love-ditties! Cupid's an ass,
And the wise man will drown the small elf in his glass.

Second Student.
—Ha, ha! lads, I told you our Ralph had been hit:
Now, guess the rare mixture of beauty and wit.

Third Student.
—Nay, we name not the name of a damsel of honour;
Enough that such verses come showering upon her.
Now for something more stirring. I sing like a horse;
But here's for the old land of heather and gorse.

First Student.
—Pshaw! your patriotsong now is only sonorous;
And, besides, people laugh at us talking so grand,
And praising ourselves, and our crusty old land.
Come, set us a catch with a rattling good chorus.

Third Student.
—Nay, none of your catches. Ralph, let's have a stave
With a touch of the pathos, like that which you gave
At the Doctor's last evening: I noted his eye:
How he sipped his glass daintily while it was dry!
How he gulped it in tumblers a frigate might float,
With the tear in his eye, and the lump in his throat!
You may roar out a chorus, lads: but to my thinking,
There is nothing like pathos, for good steady drinking.

All.
—Ay, ay, Ralph, touch up the feelings a bit;
And let each prime his glass: weeping's drier than wit.

Darrell.
—But nothing will please you. Well, never mind;
The birds sing their songs to the trees and the wind.

First Student.
—A sell! a sell! why, I've emptied my glass:
And it's only a fellow that jilted his lass.

Second Student.
—I wonder now Ralph, you can look in my face!
We asked you for pathos, and lo! commonplace.

Third Student.
—Silence there! Ralph, you must try it again.
Hark! how the sea moans: give us a strain
Caught from the wail of the lonesome main.