368
POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
Novels of course depict it final bliss,—
Say, had it ever really once been this?
Our Yankee friend (whom, ere the night was done,
We called New England or the Pilgrim Son),
A little tired, made bold to interfere;
'Appeal,' he said, 'to me; my sentence hear.
You'll reason on till night and reason fail;
My judgment is you each shall tell a tale;
And as on marriage you can not agree,
Of love and marriage let the stories be.'
Sentence delivered, as the younger man,
My lawyer friend was called on and began.
'Infandum jubes! 'tis of long ago,
If tell I must, I tell the tale I know:
Yet the first person using for the freak,
Don't rashly judge that of myself I speak.'
So to his tale; if of himself or not
I never learnt, we thought so on the spot.
Lightly he told it as a thing of old,
And lightly I repeat it as he told.
Say, had it ever really once been this?
Our Yankee friend (whom, ere the night was done,
We called New England or the Pilgrim Son),
A little tired, made bold to interfere;
'Appeal,' he said, 'to me; my sentence hear.
You'll reason on till night and reason fail;
My judgment is you each shall tell a tale;
And as on marriage you can not agree,
Of love and marriage let the stories be.'
Sentence delivered, as the younger man,
My lawyer friend was called on and began.
'Infandum jubes! 'tis of long ago,
If tell I must, I tell the tale I know:
Yet the first person using for the freak,
Don't rashly judge that of myself I speak.'
So to his tale; if of himself or not
I never learnt, we thought so on the spot.
Lightly he told it as a thing of old,
And lightly I repeat it as he told.
