Ode--'On A Distant Prospect' Of Making A Fortune

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Now the "rosy morn appearing"
  Floods with light the dazzled heaven;
And the schoolboy groans on hearing
  That eternal clock strike seven:-
Now the waggoner is driving
  Towards the fields his clattering wain;
Now the bluebottle, reviving,
  Buzzes down his native pane.

But to me the morn is hateful:
  Wearily I stretch my legs,
Dress, and settle to my plateful
  Of (perhaps inferior) eggs.
Yesterday Miss Crump, by message,
  Mentioned "rent," which "p'raps I'd pay;"
And I have a dismal presage
  That she'll call, herself, to-day.

Once, I breakfasted off rosewood,
  Smoked through silver-mounted pipes -
Then how my patrician nose would
  Turn up at the thought of "swipes!"
Ale,--occasionally claret, -
  Graced my luncheon then:- and now
I drink porter in a garret,
  To be paid for heaven knows how.

When the evening shades are deepened,
  And I doff my hat and gloves,
No sweet bird is there to "cheep and
  Twitter twenty million loves:"
No dark-ringleted canaries
  Sing to me of "hungry foam;"
No imaginary "Marys"
  Call fictitious "cattle home."

Araminta, sweetest, fairest!
  Solace once of every ill!
How I wonder if thou bearest
  Mivins in remembrance still!
If that Friday night is banished
  Yet from that retentive mind,
When the others somehow vanished,
  And we two were left behind:-

When in accents low, yet thrilling,
  I did all my love declare;
Mentioned that I'd not a shilling -
  Hinted that we need not care:
And complacently you listened
  To my somewhat long address -
(Listening, at the same time, isn't
  Quite the same as saying Yes).

Once, a happy child, I carolled
  O'er green lawns the whole day through,
Not unpleasingly apparelled
  In a tightish suit of blue:-
What a change has now passed o'er me!
  Now with what dismay I see
Every rising morn before me!
  Goodness gracious, patience me!

And I'll prowl, a moodier Lara,
  Through the world, as prowls the bat,
And habitually wear a
  Cypress wreath around my hat:
And when Death snuffs out the taper
  Of my Life, (as soon he must),
I'll send up to every paper,
  "Died, T. Mivins; of disgust."

© Charles Stuart Calverley