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And scholarship as sound as his whose nameMatched thine (he lives to mourn, alas, thy death,And now enjoys the plenitude of fame.And oft to crowded audience lectureth,Or writes to prove religion is the sameAs science, unbelief a form of faith):—Ripe scholar! Vergil's self would not be charyOf praises for thy Carmen Seculare.
Whene'er I take my "pint of beer" a day,I "gaze into my glass" and think of thee:When smoking, after "lunch is cleared away,"Thy face amid the cloud I seem to see;When "that sweet mite with whom I used to play,"Or "Araminta," or "the fair Miss P."Recur to me, I think upon thy verses,Which still my beating heart and quench my curses.
Ah, Calverley! if in these lays of mineSome sparkle of thy radiant genius burned.Or were in any poem—stanza—line Some faint reflection of thy muse discerned: If any critic would remark in fine"Of C. S. C. this gentle art he learned;"I should not then expect my book to fail,Nor have my doubts about a decent sale.
Pall Mall Gazette, March 4th, 1891.
