Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/161

 The measure of his jingle. I am old, And you are young. Be sure, I may go back To squeak for you the tunes of yesterday On my old fiddle—or what's left of it— And give you as I'm able a young sound; But all the while I do it I remain One of Apollo's pensioners (and yours), An usher in the Palace of the Sun, A candidate for mattocks and trombones (The brass-band will be indispensable), A patron of high science, but no critic. So I shall have to tell him, I suppose, That I read nothing now but Wordsworth, Pope, Lucretius, Robert Burns, and William Shakespeare. Now this is Mr. Killigrew's performance: "'Say, do you go to London Town, You with the golden feather?'—  'And if I go to London Town  With my golden feather?'—  'These autumn roads are bright and brown, The season wears a russet crown; And if you go to London Town, We'll go down together'  "I cannot say for certain, but I think The brown bright nightingale was half assuaged Before your Mr. Killigrew was born. If I have erred in my chronology, No matter,—for the feathered man sings now: "'Yes, I go to London Town'  (Merrily waved the feather),  'And if you go to London Town, Yes, we'll go together'