To build his own, upon thy deathless fame:[1]250
Friend of my heart, and foremost of the list
Of those with whom I lived supremely blest;
Oft have we drain'd the font of ancient lore,
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still the more;
Yet, when Confinement's lingering hour was done,
Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one:
Together we impell'd the flying ball,
Together waited in our tutor's hall;
Together join'd in cricket's manly toil,
Or shar'd the produce of the river's spoil;260
Or plunging from the green declining shore,
Our pliant limbs the buoyant billows bore:[2]
In every element, unchang'd, the same,
All, all that brothers should be, but the name.
Nor, yet, are you forgot, my jocund Boy!
Davus,[3] the harbinger of childish joy;
For ever foremost in the ranks of fun,
The laughing herald of the harmless pun;
Yet, with a breast of such materials made,
Anxious to please, of pleasing half afraid;270
- ↑
Could aught inspire me with poetic fire.
For thee, alone, I'd strike the hallow'd lyre;
But, to some abler hand, the task I wave,
Whose strains immortal may outlive the grave.—[P. on V. Occasions.] - ↑ Our lusty limbs.—[P. on V. Occasions.]
—— the buoyant waters bore.—[Hours of Idleness.] - ↑ [The Rev. John Cecil Tattersall, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, who died December 8, 1812, at Hall's Place, Kent, aged twenty-three.]
