The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts
Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports;
Then riverward we trudge it, all talking, once again
Down all the long unlovely extent of Jesus Lane.
One figure leads the others; with frank and boyish mien,
Straight back and sturdy shoulders, he lords it o'er the scene;
His grip is firm and manly, his cheeks are smooth and red;
The tangled curls cling tightly about his jolly head.
And when we launch the eight-oar I hear his orders ring;
With dauntless iteration I see his body swing:
The pride of all the river, the mainstay of our crew--
O Postumous, my bold one, can this be truly you?
Nay, Postumus, my comrade, the years have hurried on;
You're not the only Phoenix, I know, whose plumes are gone.
When I recall your splendour, your memory, too, is stirred;
You too can show a moulted, but once refulgent, bird;
And, if I still should press you, you too could hardly fail
To point a hateful moral where I adorned the tale.
'Twere better to be thankful to Heaven that ruled it so,
And gave us for our spending the days of long ago.
A RAMSHACKLE ROOM
When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn,
And the lights are put out in the vault of the night;
When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn,
And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight,
Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am
My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam.
'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain
Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor;
With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane,
And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door;
With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall,
And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall.
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