Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/102

 And that is the reason, you see,

Why, as I have the honour to state,

We, who were seventy-two,

Are now only seven or eight.

One took to heretical views,

And one, they inform me, to drink;

Some construct fortunes in trade,

Some starve in professions, I think.

But one way or other, alas!

Through the culpable action of Fate

We, who were seventy-two

Are now shrunken to seven or eight.

So, whether we like it or not,

Let us own there's a bond in the past,

And, since we were playmates at school,

Continue good friends to the last.

The roll-book is closed in the room,

The clackan is gone with the slate,

We, who were seventy-two

Are now only seven or eight.

We shall never, our books on our back,

Trudge off in the morning again,

To the slide at the janitor's door,

By the ambush of rods in the lane. [ 90 ]