’T was ever thus from childhood’s hour!

I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun.

White is the wold, and ghostly The dank and leafless trees; And 'M's and 'N's are mostly Pronounced like 'B's and 'D's: 'Neath bleak sheds, ice-encrusted, The sheep stands, mute and stolid:

I have a liking old For thee, though manifold Stories, I know, are told Not to thy credit; How one (or two at most) Drops make a cat a ghost—

O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass! Names that should be on every infant's tongue! Shall days and months and years and centuries pass, And still your merits be unrecked, unsung? Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass, And wished …

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;

I can not sing the old songs now! It is not that I deem them low; ’T is that I can’t remember how They go.