Oh for the nights when we used to sit <br />In the firelight's glow or flicker, <br />With the gas turned low and our pipes all lit, <br />And the air fast growing thicker; <br /> <br />When you, enthroned in the big arm-chair, <br />Would spin for us yarns unending, <br />Your voice and accent and pensive air <br />With the narrative subtly blending! <br /> <br />Oh for the bleak and wintry days <br />When we set our blood in motion, <br />Leaping the rocks below the braes <br />And wetting our feet in the ocean, <br /> <br />Or shying at marks for moderate sums <br />(A penny a hit, you remember), <br />With aching fingers and purple thumbs, <br />In the merry month of December! <br /> <br />There is little doubt we were very daft, <br />And our sports, like the stakes, were trifling; <br />While the air of the room where we talked and laughed <br />Was often unpleasantly stifling. <br /> <br />Now we are grave and sensible men, <br />And wrinkles our brows embellish, <br />And I fear we shall never relish again <br />The pleasures we used to relish. <br /> <br />And I fear we never again shall go, <br />The cold and weariness scorning, <br />For a ten mile walk through the frozen snow <br />At one o'clock in the morning: <br /> <br />Out by Cameron, in by the Grange, <br />And to bed as the moon descended . . . <br />To you and to me there has come a change, <br />And the days of our youth are ended.<br /><br />Robert Fuller Murray<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-c-c-c/
