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Original Text
Charles Stuart Calverley. Fly Leaves (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, 1890): 29-31. PR 4409 C2F5 1890 Robarts Library.
1I know not why my soul is rack'd:
2 Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
3I only know that, as a fact,
4 I don't.
5I used to roam o'er glen and glade
6 Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
7And not unfrequently I made
8 A joke.
9A minstrel's fire within me burn'd.
10 I'd sing, as one whose heart must break,
11Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd
12 To shake.
13All day I sang; of love, of fame,
14 Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
15Until the thing almost became
16 A bore.
17I cannot sing the old songs now!
18 It is not that I deem then low;
19'Tis that I can't remember how
20 They go.
21I could not range the hills till high
22 Above me stood the summer moon:
23And as to dancing, I could fly
24 As soon.
25The sports, to which with boyish glee
26 I sprang erewhile, attract no more;
27Although I am but sixty-three
28 Or four.
29Nay, worse than that, I've seem'd of late
30 To shrink from happy boyhood -- boys
31Have grown so noisy, and I hate
32 A noise.
33They fright me, when the beech is green,
34 By swarming up its stem for eggs:
35They drive their horrid hoops between
36 My legs: --
38 I'll tell you what I'll do instead:
40 To bed.
Notes
37] repine: complain. Back to Line
39] arrowroot: nutricious starchy root native to the West Indies and marketed for its health-giving properties. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1872
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
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