With pensive eyes the little room I view,
Where in my youth I weathered it so long,
With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two,
And a light heart still breaking into song;
Making a mock of life, and all its cares,
Rich in the glory of my rising sun:
Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Yes; 'tis a garret--let him know't who will---
There was my bed--full hard it was and small;
My table there--and I decipher still
Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
Ye joys, that Time hath swept with him away,
Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun:
For you I pawned my watch how many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one!
And see my little Jessy, first of all;
She comes with pouting lips and sparkling eyes:
Behold, how roguishly she pins her shawl
Across the narrow casement, curtain-wise:
Now by the bed her petticoat glides down,
And when did women look the worse in none?
I have heard since who paid for many a gown,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
One jolly evening, when my friends and I
Made happy music with our songs and cheers,
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high,
And distant cannon opened on our ears;
We rise,--we join in the triumphant strain,--
Napoleon conquers--Austerlitz is won--
Tyrants shall never tread us down again,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Let us begone--the place is sad and strange--
How far, far off, these happy times appear!
All that I have to live I'd gladly change
For one such month as I have wasted here--
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power,
From founts of hope that never will outrun,
And drink all life's quintessence in an hour:
Give me the days when I was twenty-one.
Version of W.M. Thackeray.