Hobbledehoys

Oh! there is a time, a happy time,
When a boy is just half a man;
When ladies may kiss him without a crime,
And flirt with him like a fan:--
When mammas with their daughters will leave him alone,
If he only will seem to fear them;
While were he a man, or a little more grown,
They never would let him near them.

These, Lilly!--these were the days when you
Were my boyhood’s earliest flame,--
When I thought it an honour to tie your shoe,
And trembled to hear your name:--
When I scarcely ventured to take a kiss,
Though your lips seemed half to invite me;
But, Lilly! I soon got over this,--
When I kissed--and they did not bite me!

Oh! these were gladsome and fairy times,
And our hearts were then in their Spring,
When I passed my nights in writing you rhymes,
And my days in hearing you sing:--
And don’t you remember your mother’s dismay
When she found in your drawer my sonnet;
And the beautiful verses I wrote, one day,
On the ribbon that hung from your bonnet!

And the seat we made by the fountain’s gush,
Where your task you were wont to say,--
And how I lay under the holly-bush
Till your governess went away:--
And how, when too long at your task you sat,
Or whenever a kiss I wanted,
I brayed like an ass--or mewed like a cat,
Till she deemed that the place was haunted!

And do you not, love, remember the days
When I dressed you for the play,--
When I pinned your kerchief, and laced your stays
In the neatest and tidiest way!--
And do you forget the kiss you gave
When I tore my hand with the pin;--
And how you wondered men would not shave
The beards from their horrible chin.

And do you remember the garden wall
I climbed up every night,--
And the racket we made in the servants’ hall
When the wind had put out the light;--
When Sally got up in her petticoat,
And John came out in his shirt,--
And I silenced her with a guinea-note,
And blinded him with a squirt!

And don’t you remember the horrible bite
I got from the gardener’s bitch,
When John let her out of the kennel, for spite,
And she seized me, crossing the ditch;--
And how you wept when you saw my blood,
And numbered me with Love’s martyrs,--
And how you helped me out of the mud,
By tying together your garters!

But, Lilly! now I am grown a man,
And those days have all gone by,--
And Fortune may give me the best she can,
And the brightest destiny;
But I would give every hope and joy
That my spirit may taste again,
That I once more were that gladsome boy,
And that you were as young as then.