At Francis Allen�s on the Christmas-eve,�
The game of forfeits done�the girls all kiss�d
Beneath the sacred bush and past away�
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,
Then half-way ebb�d: and there we held a talk,
How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games
In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out
With cutting eights that day upon the pond,
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,
I bump�d the ice into three several stars,
Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,
Now harping on the church-commissionners,
Now hawking at Geology and schism;
Until I woke, and found him settled down
Upon the general decay of faith
Right thro� the world, �at home was little left,
And none abroad: there was no anchor none,
To hold by.� Francis, laughing, clapt his hand
On Everard�s shoulder, with �I hold by him.�
�And I,� quoth Everard, �by the wassail-bowl.�
�Why yes,� I said, �we knew your gift that way
At college: but another which you had,
I mean of verse (for so we held it then),
What came of that ?� �You know,� said Frank, �he burnt
His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books��
And then to me demanding why? �Oh, sir,
He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said �twas nothing�that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the clay
God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask.
It pleased me well enough.� �Nay, nay,� said Hall,
�Why take the style of those heroic times?
For nature brings not back the Mastodon,
Nor we those times; and why should any man
Remodel models? these twelve books of mine
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth.
Mere chaff and draft, much better burnt.� �But I,�
Said Francis, �pick�d the eleventh from this hearth
And have it: keep a thing, its use will come.
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.�
He laugh�d, and I, tho� sleepy, like a horse
That hears the corn-bin open, prick�d my ears;
For I remember�d Everard�s college fame
When we were Freshmen: then at my request
He brought it ; and the poet little urged,
But with some prelude of disparagement,
Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,
Deep-chested music, and to this result.
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