Good-bye! once more,--and kindly tell
In words of peace the young world's story,--
And say, besides,--we love too well
Our mother's soil, our fathers' glory!
When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had been
coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited, as you may
have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up. The Professor says
he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write verses. At any rate, he
has often tried, and now he was determined to try again. So when some
professional friends of his called him up, one day, after a feast of
reason and a regular "freshet" of soul which had lasted two or three
hours, he read them these verses. He introduced them with a few remarks,
he told me, of which the only one he remembered was this: that he had
rather write a single line which one among them should think worth
remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams. It was
all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy then, and
perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious; however, it may be
that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and
watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a kitten always, as the old
gentleman opposite said the other day.
You must listen to this seriously, for I think the Professor was very much
in earnest when he wrote it.
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