Talk:Lapsus Calami (Apr 1891)/To A. S.
| Information about this edition | |
|---|---|
| Edition: | Lapsus Calami, April 1891 (first edition) |
| Source: | Lapsus Calami at Internet Archive |
| Contributor(s): | S0208 |
| Level of progress: | Proofread and corrected 
|
| Notes: | See below |
Notes[edit]
The Cambridge Meteor ran for seven issues in 1882, but the available file is incomplete, and this piece is not in the surviving material. An article in The Athenæum of 23 November 1889 (at Google Books), however, gives the issue number and reprints the poem.
The reprint in the fourth edition of Lapsus Calami is at Google Books.
The reprint in the posthumous edition (Lapsus Calami and Other Verses) is at Google Books.
The text is identical in the first, fourth, and posthumous editions.
The text from The Cambridge Meteor as reprinted in The Athenæum is given below. Notes call attention to the major differences.
Birthdays? Yes, in a general way
For the most if not for the best of men.
You were born I suppose on a certain day:
So was I, or perhaps in the night—what then?
Only this: or at least if more
You must know, not think it—a lame suggestion[1]
From one who is drenched in the classic lore
Of ready answer to futile question:—[2]
That many are called and few are chosen,
Though few grow many as ages lapse;
But when will the many grow few? What dozen
Is fused into one by Time's hammer-taps?
A bare brown stone in a babbling brook:
It was wanton to hurl it there, you say,
And the moss that clung in the flowery nook
(Yet the stream runs cooler) is washed away.
That begs the question. Many a prater
Thinks such an objection a sound "stop thief,"
Which, may I ask, do you think the greater,
Serjeant-at-Arms or a robber-chief?
And if it were not so: still you doubt?
Ah! yours is a birthday indeed, if so.
That were something to write a poem about,
If one thought a little: I only know.
[There's a Me Society down in Cambridge
Where my text[3] cum notis variorum
Is talk'd about; well, I require the same bridge
Which Euclid takes toll at as Asinorum.
And as they have got through several ditties
Which I thought to be thick as a brick-built wall,
I have built the enclosed[4] (and a stiff one it is),
A bridge to stop asses at once for all.]