My prayer-book fell--my neighbour smiled;
Reversing NEWTON with the apple,
I, by that neighbour's eye beguiled,
Quite lost my gravity in chapel.
And so we smiled. I see him still,
Blue eyes, where darting gleams of fun shine,
A smile like some translucent rill
That sparkles in the summer sunshine,
A manly mien, and unafraid,
Crisp hair, fair face, and square-set shoulders,
That made him on the King's Parade
The cynosure of all beholders.
And from this slight irreverence,
Too small, I hope, to waste your blame on,
We grew, in quite a Cambridge sense,
A sort of PYTHIAS and DAMON.
Together "kept," together broke
Laws framed by elderly Draconians,
And I was six, and JACK was stroke,
That famous night we bumped the Johnians.
How strong he was, how fleet of foot,
Ye bull-dogs witness, and ye Proctors;
How bright his jests, how aptly put
His scorn of duns, and Dons, and Doctors.
We laughed at care, read now and then--
Though vexed by EUCLID on the same bridge--
Ah, men in those great days were men
When JACK and I wore gowns at Cambridge.
We paid our fines, we paid our fees,
And, though the Dons seemed stony-hearted,
We both got very fair degrees,
And then, like other friends, we parted.
And when we said good-bye at last
I vowed through life to be his brother--
And more than forty years have passed
Since each set eyes upon the other.
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