Musa Burschicosa :: :: University of Virginia Library

Bill is a bright boy;
Do you know Bill?
Marching cheerily
Up and down hill;
Bill is a bright boy
At books and at play,
A right and a tight boy
All the boys say.

His face is like roses
In flush of the June;
His eyes like the welkin
When cloudless the noon;
His step is like fountains
That bicker with glee,
Beneath the green mountains,
Down to the sea.

When Bill plays at cricket,
No ball on the green
Is shot from the wicket
So sharp and so clean;
He stands at his station
As strong as a king,
When he lifts up a nation
On Victory's wing.

And on the golf-ground
Who is like Bill,
Winging his ball
With a soul and a will,
Loftily leaping
On to the goal,
Cunningly creeping
Into the hole!

And in the ball-room
He shows such a heel,
Shooting like light
Through the maze of the reel!
Huge-whiskered is Harry,
And thewed like a man,
But Bill I will marry,
Says Jess, if I can!

When bent upon study
He girds to his books,
No frown ever ploughs
The smooth pride of his looks;
I came, and I saw,
And I conquered at will—
This be the law
For great Cæsar and Bill!

Like Thor with the hammer
Of power in his hand,
He rides through the grammar
Triumphant and grand;
O'er bastions of brambles,
Which pedants up-pile,
He leaps, and he ambles
Along with a smile.

And like the deep thunder
Of Jove, and the chime
Of St. Paul's, he out-billows
His Latin sublime;
At his Greek stand confounded
All critical men,
So trippingly rounded
It flows from his pen!

As mild as a maiden
Where mildness belongs,
He's hot as Achilles
When goaded by wrongs;
He flirts with a danger,
He sports with an ill,
To fear such a stranger
Is brave-hearted Bill!

For Bill is a bright boy,
Who is like Bill?
Oft have I marched with him
Up and down hill.
When I hear his voice calling
I follow him still,
And, standing or falling,
I conquer with Bill!