Those Goodoldays.

(Being the impressions of an undergrad. On his first acquauitance with Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader.)

Those Anglo-Saxon days are gone,
On Time's elusive courser,
When Hengest sang his warlike song,
And thereupon grew Horsa;
When men did nought but fight and drink,
And no one troubled much to think
With waes hail, drink hail, kisses three,
Ah, those were days for you and me.

'Twas stroke for stroke, and blow for blow,
Where takers vied with givers;
Then wholly non-existent fleets
Sailed non-existent rivers.
Then troop met troop in fierce campaign,
Till every single man was slain,
Yet ere another moon grew pale,
The dead came back to tell the tale.

Sensation had they, flesh and bone,
To test it no appliance;
Psychology was then unknown,
As séance or as science;
And Bells rang always true and sound,
And who was Stout was mostly round,
And Hunters hunted after rations
Far more substantial than sensations.

page 61

King Alfred of his "How to teach"
Was proud as festive peacock,
And heeded not at all the speech
Of any heathen Leacock,
And when the poor passed round their hats
All ostentations Plutocrats
(They saved their souls from pains and Furies)
Showed they had hearts as well as—breweries.

Their language then was not too nice,
A truth we shan't expand on;
It bore in fact a large spice
Of brandy than of Brandon.
Their learned men were scarce and few,
Nor were they overwhelmed with screw,
And who with bulging eye was after
A larger draft, was called a draughter.

But now thou hast made, bitter, Sweet,
Those days, with dull Selections,
And authors who were once complete
Come bobbing up in sections.
Ah, were those days but back again,
And could King Alfred rule again;
With waes hail, drink hail, kisses three,
Ah, those were days for you and me.

S. E.